Profit Pits Design Blog
- Roland Thomas
- May 4, 2025
- 10 min read
Updated: May 13, 2025
29/01/25 - Decided on a direction for the game. The project brief is to create a 3D multiplayer game. My group established what our individual aims are with the project. The programmers informed that they wanted a game that can be played with up to 6-8 players. We also determined that we wanted it to be a low poly, collaborative game where resources will need to be shared, such as vision, & tools. After a day I came up with three potential game settings that fit these early requirements. The first is a Factory game, where the players are in a factory line and must add stuff to a product without knowing what the end result should be. One player would play as an overseer would communicate what needs to be added to get to the final product, and points would be added based on how similar it is. Think Satisfactory meets Chinese Whispers. The next idea was inspired by a board game called Dead of Winter. This would be a collaborative zombie game, but gameplay would focusing more on the survival side of things that the 'kill all zombies' motif that we're used to. Collaborating to fulfil tasks, keep up defences against zombies, venture out to get resources for camp, deal with the risks of leaving camp, the elements zombies, share resources - etc. Last but not least, a Mining game in which players with manage and share tools.
While all three were feasible, I struggled to visualise what the actual gameplay would look like, in a way that would be fun, and not just Chores: The Game. I managed to do this with the Mining game however and proposed the following to my team.
The mining game would have a limited number of roles and tools available which would split amongst each other. Each player in a lobby can have 1 role and 1 tool, however these can be changed mid match. A role is determined by the Hat the player wears, and provides general passive buffs which aid certain aspects of gameplay, such as movement speed, mining speed, gathering capacity, or foraging yield.
The game level would consist of two zones, the Mine and the Surface. In the Mine, there is fog of war, and players have near sight only. Players with a light source tool like a torch or lamp can light up the map for team members to aid their search for ores or dangers. Those with a pickaxe tool can mine found ores. As players work, they’ll get hungry and will need to be fed, so food would need to be made, and ingredients foraged. Mined materials could be used to construct new gears and structures. The goal would be to mine valuable resources (gold/diamond), while other materials mined can be used or consumed for team purposes. Ores collected would be carried to the Surface. also, one food type can be foraged underground, such as mushrooms.
On the Surface, ores can be appraised to determine their monetary value, and tools can be repaired or remade if destroyed. Appraised ores can be sent off to add to the team score, food can be made, and more food ingredients can be foraged. The surface is also safe from rockfalls, cave ins and gas leaks.
Initial ideas for tools include:
Pickaxe - used to mine ores
Torch/Lamp - used to light fog of war for all players
Caged Canary - used to help predict hazardous events like gas leaks and rockfalls
Backpack/Trolley - used to transport ores
Pot - station to cook food at
Toolbench - Used to craft mine improvements, and repair/improve tools.
05/02/25 - Decided on the structure of the game. I came up with an idea to have the game play on two levels, the surface and the mine. Inside the mine there will be fog of war, and the player will have nearsight. Our game is structured so that each player have 2 slots. Tool & Hat. Later on, I determined that we would have 3 slots instead, with the third slot being for consumables, as it may be required that a player holds multiple consumables, whereas they can only have a single item in the other slots.
We determined the tools and mechanics of the game (see images below) and brought the ideas to the programmers. Players will have stamina bars, which get used up as they work, and can be refilled with food. (of which the ingredients must be foraged, then cooked). The lobby owner will be able to adjust some game rules in before starting the world, this allows for different people to play the game the way they want, to adjust the difficulty, or play with special rules. We are allowing a fair amount of freedom in how the players can play, with aims to allow players to develop their own styles of play and meta strategies to beat the game. The main inspirations so far are Overcooked, Minecraft, and League of Legends. I also am aware that I want us to implement audio and onboarding (tutorial) content as soon as possible, as their late addition in another project led to their omission when we weren't able to finish on time. This way, players will know how to play even if we don't implement all the features we'd like.
19-02-25 - We decided on a narrative for the game, and also the name - Profit Pits. The players are Miners working for a corrupt company called Quarry Minds Inc, a company who prioritises money and profit over the wellbeing of their employees (the players).
It was then determined that all communications in the game, such as the tutorial, or guides for the players would be coming from Quarry Minds, which provided a context for the form of language to be used in the game.
Quarry Minds Inc. is a company that want to present themselves as a great place to work, so will appear to come across friendly, excited to have the players/employees, and otherwise speak as if they were inviting people to work for them, but there would be signs to show they aren't fully genuine. For example, calling players suckers, and then crossing it out with the strikethrough formatting, to present it as an accidental slip of their true feelings towards their employees.
5-03-25 - Explored the prospect of tool Mastery as a tool XP type thing. The way this would work is each player would gain a Tool-related XP when using a Tool, and this would improve the efficiency or unlock new ability or skills for it once unlocked. Later on this was changed to be a feature held in the Hats, not the Tools. The reason for this is that limiting the XP to a specific Tool would encourage players to only do one task at a time, in order to farm the XP for that Tool. We want players to be flexible in the tasks that they complete, in case the need arises that they should do something else. Instead, we decided this would be a cumulative Hat-specific experience system, that unlocks new skills or abilities for the lobby once the Mastery as been reached. The specifics have not been worked out fully yet, and due to scope, this could be an idea for the future.
Started creating item breakdowns on Trello for the Programmers to reference.
Identified new QTE minigames for tasks, such as smelting. Also did a first draft floor plan for the Surface zone, which was later grey boxed in-engine.
19-03-25 - In preparation for the project proposal, we determined the colour scheme for Quarry Minds (and thus, Profit Pits' UI) and specified the first draft of milestones, and overall progression. Also, we identified the mining ores and minerals, and the goal of what 'stage' of the game they should be available, early/mid/late game. The Milestones would preliminarily be decided by a mathematical algorithm, as we want the players to have the ability to play as long as they want, however it is expected and planned that the algorithm will need to be tuned and balances, to ensure an acceptable rate of progression for the player, whether playing alone or in a full group. This is incredibly important for the overall enjoyment of the game.
2/4/25 - I started talks with my friend about creating custom music for the game, and explored the audio direction. We talked about some of the elements of what goes into game music, such as transitions and stingers, and what he could provide, and then I gave him the audio direction for the title menu, surface area and the mines and provided existing in-development materials for reference.
The mines should have a slight sense of anxiety but not horror-inducing, the surface should feel safe and a place to work, and the title screen should feel a bit business like but also a bit anxiety inducing, to embody the corruption behind the kind façade.
16/4/25 - More meetings on the audio direction. We're unlikely to get more than the title track due to my friend's busy schedule, so we spoke on more details on that. I heard the first iteration of the title track, but it had a percussion set that gave a latin vibe to the piece, and it was little too dance-y. While it was okay for the music so be reminiscent of elevator music, the current version made me want to start dancing, which is not the direction for the game.
It provides the perfect amount of anxiety however. I refined the brief so that the music should be like a corporate advertisement , with Quarry Minds trying to draw in new workers, but underneath the surface they are not a good company, and the job isn't the safest. It should feel corporate and inviting, like being ready to go off and work, but also slightly off-putting, or eery.
28/04/25 implemented the surface level art, using Synty asset packs I owned.
I built on the existing greybox Surface scene, and created a terrain, before starting on the Mine. I took into account the camera angle, and realised I did not need all the space I allocated for the Mine, as they would simply access the Elevator there, which would allow them to access the Mine. So I created rock walls, to turn it into a cavernous room.
I created a stone road and a lorry to act as the delivery route for the smelted metal ingots and minerals players provide, and found assets toolbench assets for where the players will collect their tools and hats, etc.
I then created a garden type space, which is where we can spawn ingredients to forage, before decorating the surrounding area with trees.
As it is an online game, I decided not to use and foliage like grass or flowers, to see how the network would handle what I had already created, before seeing whether there was leg room to beautify the terrain even more.
5/05/25 - The final version of the title music is complete and has been sent to me, and I've finalised all (or near enough) the audio files required for the game, and listed on Trello. List includes ambient audio & backing music for all areas, Various UI & menu SFX such as clicks, opening/closing SFX, scroll & dragging SFX, Footsteps, Tool & Activity SFX, and more, ready for implementation. I also included a third party plugin to help loop the music files seamlessly. All the audio files were in the project files, and organised by file name, so the programmers can identify which audio is for the UI clicks, and what is a footstep, or ambience audio, etc.
The programmers have done a stunning job on implementing the mine, physics and mechanics, and to my surprise they managed to place the Mines under the Surface in the same scene, so by animating the Elevator, the players can literally be lowered into the mine level by level, as opposed to being teleported there from the elevator. This seamless aspect is really cool to have in the game.
We needed to find models for some core game assets, like Ores. For this we found a free model of a rock online and after checking the licenses for the model, then used Meshy.ai to re-texture the model to look like the various ores we needed in the game. This worked out quite well, however, even though the prompts we gave said for the textures to be in a low poly style, they still look relatively higher poly than other items in the game, but it still worked for us.
We implemented the majority of sounds, and focused on getting the core gameplay loop workable in the game.
Due to delays we had to push back our plans for testing, so we tested it this week. The programmers worked out some of the networking bugs, and eventually we were all able to load into the game!
There was some lag, as we maybe had too many floor loaded in at one time, but it was encouraging to see the game work!
Lessons Learned / Reflection
As a group I believe we did well designing this game. We all liked the idea and bought into he project at every stage and worked well as a team to bring Profit Pits to life. Some problems we encountered were often complex networking issues, such as needed to rework how the Mines would be generated, and sourcing models for things not included in the owned assets packs, like Ores and Minerals.
On my part as a game designer, I'm happy with the item breakdowns created, as my experience as a programmer helped me to predict the numerous and various situations that a programmer would want to know the behaviour of.
I helped to keep the project aligned with the core vision, to ensure that the design pillar of collaboration and player flexibility were upheld, and I think we were successful in doing that. I am extremely proud of this project and will continue working on it alongside the team to implement some of the missing features, and improve and refine the gameplay, to later add additional things like player customisation.
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