Age of Darkness: Final Stand
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is a dark fantasy survival RTS where you must illuminate, build and defend humanity’s last bastion against hordes of Nightmares. Set in the remnants of a kingdom consumed by a deadly fog, you decide. Will you hide in the light? Or take back your world.
Role Overview
In 2021, when I joined Playside Studios, I was put onto Age of Darkness as a Game Designer and was primarily responsible for the design of new content and being the “Keeper of Survival Mode” for its early access release. This role entailed being in charge of gameplay balance for every new feature that came into the survival mode of the game. After early access, I would go on to design future content that would be released in game patches every month. This involved new player units, heroes, enemy threats, buildings, perks, gameplay systems and quality of life improvements.
The team then worked on a full fledged Campaign that would be comprised of 10 fleshed out, unique missions. I was responsible for designing out 4 of these missions (namely missions 1,2,7 & 8) and also the main boss fight found in the finale. My main responsibilities were focused around level design, mission feature implementation & balancing.
Key responsibilities
System and Content Design
Collaborated with the lead designer on the full Factions System, establishing three factions with unique units, buildings, and hero playstyles.
Designed and iterated Hero Units, each with bespoke abilities and roles:
Vizargo: Magical melee ranged hybrid with high damage but low defense.
Cyrus: High-powered ranged hero with slow mobility.
Merek: Durable tank Hero focused on defense and team utility.
Aurelia: Melee bruiser with crowd control and survival tools.
Designed new bespoke Buildings, including:
Triage Tent: Chance to bring back dead troops that die near it.
Watchtower: Directs players to where the Death Night horde is coming from.
Trade Bazaar: Resource-conversion system allowing gold-for-material trade.
Treasury: Increase gold production and with a gold-loan system.
Led the design on several new units for Humans and Nightmares:
Lightbearer: Healing unit that protects units from getting horrified.
Hunter: Ranged unit that pierces armor and deploys poisonous traps.
Harbinger: Ranged support that can horrify nearby units for increased damage.
Burster: Suicide Nightmare unit that self-detonates for large damage but can be ignited to fire explode and cause friendly fire.
Co-designed the global Armour Shred System, adding long-term tension and strategic depth to the core gameplay loop.
Economy Design
Responsible for balancing unit stats, building costs, and gameplay systems (armor, faction bonuses, etc.).
Designed and tuned enemy wave strength and Death Night compositions, especially for survival mode’s different difficulty settings.
Managed resource placement and spawn logic to ensure strategic risk/reward.
Designed player progression over time (unit unlocking, hero power balance, skill tree tweaking, early game vs late game scaling).
Mission and Level Design
Fully designed 4 out of the 10 campaign missions, handling:
Mission structure and narrative flow.
Level design and pacing of core and side objectives.
Balanced across all features of each mission.
Implemented mission gameplay features via custom Unreal Engine editor tools.
Designed, prototyped, and implemented the final boss encounter:
Fully scripted using internal tools.
Coordinated with Animation, VFX, Audio, and Engineering to deliver the final experience.
Prototyping and Documentation
Wrote detailed design documentation, including system specs, balancing spreadsheets, and feature outlines.
Created prototypes for new systems to test unit interactions, building logic, and enemy behaviors.
Worked with the engineering team to iterate on systems and prototype features, aligning design intent with technical implementation.
Conducted playtests to validate game systems and used feedback to refine balancing and mission design.