JASON REIS GAME DESIGN
Mafia III
District Design and Game Scripting
I served in two primary roles on Mafia III, District Designer (leadership role for that area of the world) and Technical Designer (primarily scripted systems), with the balance of the rest spent as a Senior Mission Designer focused on hideouts.
District design included open world missions, plot-lines, encounters and activities; design of gameplay, narrative, game objectives, combat, AI flow, stealth route/patrols, cover, nav, and environmental storytelling that allowed for usage of multiple approaches and playstyles (or at times a focus on a particular one). This also comprised some amount of district city life design (through NPC animations, shops, props, audio, text and pickups, etc) to convey the societal and functional aspects of that area, working in collaboration with world artists.
The game scripting and technical design role reached many areas of the overall game, with the exception of the core player systems (weapons/driving). I later transitioned into a player/core mechanic game design role after Mafia shipped. In summation my overall time on Mafia III split roughly 50/50 between district (creative, leadership focus), and technical design, although at given points in production I focused more heavily in one or the other.
Districts, Hideouts, World Quest Design
District Design involved creating quests in a themed area that comprised the enemy Mafia's rackets and attack surface, while reflecting the city life, history, and flavor of a fictionalized, yet authentic feeling 1960s New Orleans. These quests were built around the player's core game verbs and role play fulfillment, in which a betrayed ex-Vietnam special forces veteran supplants an entrenched citywide crime syndicate with the new one he is building. The player package was deep and well-suited to this, with features such as a robust cover/movement and stealth model, crime services, realistic muscle car driving, visceral shooting and physical melee actions. Considerations for player choice and playstyle (stealth, approach, route) were applied towards the goal of creating unique player driven stories.
In my districts, I organized strike teams of world designers and artists on and offsite towards these design goals from concept to completion. This included creating objective/narrative wrappers, placing game objects (global and unique to racket), cover, spawn profiles, VO, patrols with animated performances, authoring bespoke and reusable game scripts, then conducting iterative reviews, combat tuning to polish. This is a subset of my individual (IC) work in these types of encounters, though my responsibility was for the entire district.
Left, "Wal-Mart of stolen goods" for the Black Market Racket. I designed shopping customers and haggling, space design (interior and exterior), prop placement, combat/cover and patrols. Right, "Cleaner's Workshop", Lincoln finds a grisly scene where people are "disappeared". Presentation and layout/combat/cover/stealth routes, animated performances, environmental storytelling.
Left, Bayou Gun Shop, got the idea for this watching some youtube videos of people playing with some serious weapons while doing some research. I did some of the combat/cover work and set dressing, along with scripted events, conversation and patrols. Right, "Rescue Eddie Kenner", NPC rescue quest, multiple approach gameplay (multiple routes, I this is one of the few you can arrive by boat), narrative, environmental and direct storytelling. This also tied into district outcome; some had alternate endings at questline completion, aligned with the studio directive of "unique player stories".
Left, Garbage racket Informant, Right Black Market Enforcer. Informant encounters tended to be more stealth focused, while enforcer encounters tended to be more overt combat, and kills would weaken the hideout assault later. Side note, there are some AI bugs that weaken the enemy perception in these captures (fixed in later patches). These types of encounters, while comprising the bulk of district world quests, all had a narrative frame and unique environment treatment. This also included scripted conversations, layout work and stealth path on the left, props, conversation design/scripting, and combat on the right. Always multiple options for approach with varying trade-offs.
This role also involved a fair amount of hideout combat design prior to the district focus shift, reworking areas or establishing cover layouts, setting zones and scripts for enemy flow control and movement, iterating from multiple areas, scripting readable stealth routes with enemy patrols, and animated performances to convey the criminal racket and game play opportunities (LOS, movement, distraction, noise, etc).
Later I returned to hideouts to add hideout quests -- objective/event/narrative design and scripting that would involve a short incursion into the hideout, in the pre-boss encounter point in the game loop. On the right, one of a few big rig driving moments in our game, is a hideout quest (acquired from NPC, who tips you off to a truck of stolen merch to steal back from the hideout) from the "Black Market" racket.
This quest design and scripting included roadblocks, car launchers of pursuing mobsters, and some light vehicular chase/combat gameplay. There are alternate NPC ending conversations and reward levels based on quest outcome as well.
Left, Dock Union. I did combat work in the yard and warehouse to support stealth and a more protective cover route (given it's an early district) for combat. Right, Garbage dump sabotage quest. My contributions were in stealth route, quest design and introducing the "Cleaners" story arc here, which led to the open world Workshop discovery above.
Sitdowns
Another major area of my contribution to this project was as a technical designer and scripter for game content (quests, gameplay and narrative events, encounters) and gameplay systems (objects, UI, progression, save, hints, tutorials and game structure). One of the larger and most well received achievements in this area is as the principal script author and implementer of the Sitdown; a cinematic, systemic dialogue driven district assignment meeting in which the player can act out a Mob Boss fantasy of trying to keep his Capos in line by trading territory for upgrades, or loyalty, lest they turn on them. I also contributed initial setup work (cameras, placement) and iterative design work to substantiate the target experience (framing, conversation structure/flow, progression) and maintained this as we added different inputs and outputs to the system (loyalty, betrayal quests).
Initial Sitdown - Tension from the start. Lines recall how the district was held until conquering as they make their case.
Conflict Resolution - Keeping the team together is tricky. Cameras and conversation structure changes.
Sitdowns can potentially lead to different endings and betrayal missions.
Safehouses
NPCs
Left, NPC safehouse conversation. Systemic dialogue evolves as quests proceed (and sometimes depending on quest outcomes). Right, Special NPC interaction outside safehouses. This includes one of the interactive tutorials - I designed and implemented almost all of the tutorials after the initial mission chain (except the annoying ones). I also was the district designer for this key first district until the Sitdown effort was kicked off, so much of the district and its quests are still my original encounter designs and implementations (though taken farther by others)
Left, Connie DeMarco, your Gun Running racket contact. Since he's already worked as a mole (and contact NPC previously) in your attempt to take down the Marcano operations at the Docks, I designed him to be hiding out in a shed in an abandoned part of the industrial district. A little environmental storytelling. Right, Maria is a nervous accounting employee of the Sanitation racket that overhears terrifying things about the mysterious "Cleaners", so she meets Lincoln in a garage on the edge of town.
This Black Market racket contact has been robbed by the mob in an insurance fraud scheme. The video on the right illustrates one of the customized outcomes that the player can see if they return the stolen truck/cargo to the contact NPC. In addition to directing this racket's quest designs, I also designed this NPC location to show your contact getting in on the action himself; to show someone in the process of becoming a crook.
The gambling racket's contact is being strong-armed to throw a fight. These district racket quests were designed to show all kinds of gambling rackets, from sports books, to illicit casinos, to back alley craps. This also has conditional outcomes depending on quest completion, and foreshadows Lincoln's main mission. I also felt it was a nice change of pace to put one of these on the rooftop.