Monaco 2, the sequel to Independent Games Festival winner Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine, is a frantic,
co-op, class-based heist game featuring fully procedurally 3D levels.
My Work:
Designed 15 of the game’s 16 levels from top to bottom
Created asset lists for artists
Wrote chatter for NPCs
Worked with custom procedural 3d level engine to create levels with thematic consistency but wide strategic variety
Collaborated with Lead Designer Andy Schatz on game play features
Critics on Monaco 2:
“...each level (is) set in a different beautiful (or at least highly detailed) destination, from gorgeous yachts to fancy mansions and intimidating prisons. At times, it’s worth it to simply sneak around the level to look at all the little touches, both to appreciate the artistry and to find alternate routes and special tools to use.”
“Monaco 2 is a vast improvement on the first game in every conceivable way.“
-GameGrin
“(A big plus is the) dynamic Procedural Levels (with their) huge emphasis on replay-ability and improvisation.”
-Movies, Games and Tech
“(Monaco 2’s levels are) procedurally generated by an AI mastermind designed to concoct high-stakes challenges and infinite sneaky, stealy fun.”
“The most impactful change is the inclusion of different modes. Once you finish any level in the main campaign, you can replay that stage in Unreliable Narrator mode. The goal may be the same, but the level layouts are completely randomized… Finish the campaign, and the game unlocks daily heists, which put you on a set schedule of heists and level layouts per week. This inclusion is perhaps the biggest boon for Monaco 2, as it means the game has near-endless replayability for both multiplayer and solo play.”
-WorthPlaying
3D Procedural Levels
The level design process for Monaco 2 was unique from the level design of other games due to our custom 3D procedural levels. My work included:
Scripting with a custom JSON like data structure to create instructions for valid room placement
Thought for how different room shapes could tessellate in valid but varied arrangements
Attention to 3D orientation possibilities
Placing and weighing markers for valid weapon, mob, and objective locations
Collaborated with Lead Designer Andy Schatz on game play features
Shipyard Level
Monaco 2 players are scored based on the number of coins collected per second. Levels are designed to force players to reconsider the optimal
route between different seeds. The Shipyard, perhaps more than any level, was designed with variability in mind - the map is wide and tall, and verticality
is mainly used only to provide challenge rooms with useful weapon rewards, or basement passages which provide shortcuts but require coins to unlock the door.
The players begin on the far left side of the map and must make their way to a shipyard on the far right and then back again. There are always at least two somewhat
direct routes: a road and a series of water front docks. Both are dangerous routes which are light on coins and contain at least two high security check points.
Players can sometimes find power switches locked behind expensive coin doors which they can use to temporarily disable the security at these check points. Along the road,
themed areas are randomly spawned including a warehouse, junkyard, police station, and one or more factories. These provide the possibility of shortcuts and the promise of
coin and weapon rewards. This level also offers a very high number of pickaxes and TNT, which allow players to create new underground tunnels and blow up security doors,
windows, and turrets respectively.
Below are a few example seeds marked up to improve readability.
Yellow indicates the road and dock,
Red highlights checkpoints,
Green shows the junkyard,
Blue the police station, and
White shows factories.
Three different seeds in Blueprint mode.
The basement level of those same seeds.
Screenshots of the same seeds from the Objective viewer.
