Aubrey Rugroden
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown was a project by Strange Scaffold in cooperation with Paramount Games with Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IP. I was responsible for all 20 levels, implementing fun encounters and challenges for players of all levels of skill and familiarity with the tactical turn-based genre.
You can find the steam page for this game here!
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The Project
The levels of TMNT: TT were laid out in a traditionally tactical way: you control one of the four turtle brothers, who have action points to spend on movement, attacks, and other moves on a grid of tiles populated with obstacles, items and enemies.
However, unlike most other tactics games, every level had classic TMNT beat-em-up DNA, and the levels will progress forward. If you don't GO GO GO, you'll DIE DIE DIE. I made levels that achieved a pretty novel blend between strategic, tactical gameplay and fast-paced, satisfying beat-em-up design.
Tactics with a Twist
Possibly the most important pillar of TMNT: TT's design was Fun for Everyone. We were aware that adult fans of the property and young kids were going to pick this title up, and I needed to tune the levels to support that wide range of skill and familiarity with the genre. Tactics games can be notoriously unapproachable for the uninitiated.
The line of Flow, that razor's edge between "so simple it's boring" and "so difficult it's unfair" is a difficult thing to bite down on, especially when every player will have a different Flow line. I leveraged our random systems with static "event" encounters to bounce between different styles of gameplay and keep things moving and dynamic. While I'm not illusioned to any semblance of perfection, I think the final product nails the difficulty curve while demanding the best of almost anyone who picks up the controller.
