Colony Wars

Colony Wars is a third person shooter game made in the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) for a game design class. Our class was split into two teams and each team made their own game. I was Team Lead for my group as well as Game Designer. The role of Level Designer I split with another teammate and he was the one to actually build the game world.

We were allowed to choose whatever engine we wished. My team chose UDK for its popularity and reliability.

The Main Screen

The player plays as an ant with the goal of defending his colony from, and attacking, the opposing colony. Unfortunately, we had only one artist to support the entire project and along with several last minute technical issues, most of the characters are the standard UDK robots rather than ants. Only the Queen made it in. However, we still carried the idea of being an ant through the game environment.

The Queen

In addition to the usual information about the player's weapon and health, two new important features were added when we reworked the User Interface. First, the player now has an amount of food. In various places throughout the level, the player can find piles of food, which can be brought back to the colony.

Food Piles

Once brought to the colony's food pile, the player's food is added to the colony's reserve, which is displayed in the upper right in the second new User Interface element, along with the Queen's Health. The Queen does not regenerate lost health, and if she dies, the game is over. Conversely, the ultimate goal is to kill the enemy Queen, which will win the game. Given that real ant colonies have so many ants in them, the loss of one is insignificant. Following that reasoning, the player can immediately respawn after death, and can do so an unlimited number of times. Therefore the player can keep up the fight until the game is won or lost.

To assist in the fight against the enemy, the player can utilize the Colony Control feature which allows them to expend stocked colony food to do one of four things: Heal themselves, Heal the Queen, or spawn a new AI controlled ant of either of the two types, Gatherer or Soldier.

The Colony Control

Gatherer ants pick up and return food to the colony, taking some of the responsibility off the player for keeping the colony stocked. Soldiers will charge toward the enemy colony to seek out and destroy any foes they can. Ants spawned through Colony Control are in addition to the ones already existing, and all ants respawn automatically. So spawning new ants actually increases the size of your army, rather than just replacing fallen allies.

Between the colonies is an open area, which helps enforce the ant perspective with grass towering high overhead. It is also the primary place to locate food and the only means of crossing to the enemy colony. However, it is also a deadly battleground.

The Outside World

While the game is not complete, it is a strong functional demo of the concept.

DOWNLOAD: Colony Wars

Platform: Windows 7

Should work on any system that UDK supports.

Controls: Standard First/Third person shooter controls, immediately familiar to anyone who has played them and/or worked with UDK. WASD to move, Left Click to fire your weapon.

Special Control: Activate Colony Control by pressing E while touching the food pile.