I started out making “Red Light, Green Light”, a game mode where there is a light that controls whether players can move or not. I had it setup where players would lock up and be unable to move when there would be a red light, and they would be able to move when there is a green light. I felt like this would lend itself to really tense engagements because you could lose control at any moment.

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I tested it out with my roommate and the feedback I got was that it was too restrictive and it slowed down the combat too much. I still wanted to pursue a game mode like Red Light, Green Light so I looked into a different way to disable combat without removing control from the player.

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I ended up removing the players ability to engage in combat during the “red light” phase. This made it so that the player could still move around and allowed tense moments to happen as the players waited for the light to turn green.

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I ended up rebranding the mode from “Red Light, Green Light” to something that would read better. This is how “Weapons Free” was born. Weapons would lock during the “red light” phase and unlock during the “green light” phase. The two phases then became known as “Weapons Free” and “Weapons Locked”.

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I felt like this allowed players to jump in and immediately understand what was going on better than if it was just “Red light, Green Light”.

After I tested Weapons Free with a lot of seasoned call of duty developers, the vast majority of the feedback I received was negative. They didn’t like having their weapons removed from them because they felt like a lot of the time it happened they were about to get the drop on someone.

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Any benefit I saw from creating the game mode was met with a reason why the mode just didn’t work for that. I considered Weapons Free a failure as a game mode but I still felt like with more work I could turn it into something fun and exciting for players.

I removed the weapons being taken from the player and replaced that phase with a melee phase where all players received a random melee weapon.

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I also changed the weapons the players could use. Beforehand they could pick any gun they wanted, but now I assigned them all an energy shotgun during the “Weapons Free” phase.

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Now there were two different phases, Shotgun Phase and Melee Phase.

After I made these changes I asked for feedback from developers once more. They liked where I took it but they felt like it was too simple and it was missing something.

 

I felt the same way, although it could be potentially fun to play, there wasn’t much to the mode so I knew I could take it farther.

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One of the pieces of feedback I received was that both phases of combat felt disconnected. The melee phase didn’t affect the shotgun phase and vice versa. I started thinking of ways I could connect them.

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Another piece of feedback I received was that they didn’t like the gun I chose for the Shotgun Phase. I realized I needed to add some variety to appeal to more players. I decided to add every other weapon class. I decided I would mimic gun game, but not entirely.

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I was going to give players better weapons based on their performance. But not their performance in this phase. 

 

I would use the Melee Phase to determine what gun the player received during the Weapons Phase.

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Every kill in the Melee Phase will raise the players ability to kill others during the Weapons Phase. It will raise it by giving them a better weapon. Now I needed a way to let the players know their progress.

I added a level to every player. When they begin they are level 0. At level 0 they get a crappy but still viable gun (don't want to make them feel hopeless when they're taken back to level 0).

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As they earn more levels their weapon is changed to a gun with more and more attachments. Ultimately making it easier to get kills.

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This presented a problem though. Some players are going to be really good at leveling up during the Melee Phase. How do you allow others to catch up to them?

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This is where I took inspiration from Sticks and Stones. In that game mode the players all get a hatchet, when a player is killed by the hatchet they lose all their points. I wanted something similar for my mode

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I made it so that if a player gets a kill with a throwing hatchet they will steal all their victims levels. The enemy's levels gets added to their own.

 That’s how Ascend was born.

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Ascend is a Game Mode where there are 2 phases, the Weapons Phase and the Melee Phase.

 

Rules:

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• Players can earn Points by getting Gun Kills

• Players can earn Ascension Levels by getting Melee Kills​​

• If a player is Melee'd they will lose an Ascension Level
• Players can steal others Ascension Levels by killing them with a throwing hatchet

• ​EMP VFX/SFX Play to indicate the end of the Weapons Phase

• ​Any player to reach Max Ascension level receives a Minigun for "Ascending"​

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Phase Lengths: Weapons Phase 45 seconds | Melee Phase 45 seconds
Win Condition: First player to 30 | Highest Score when the time limit ends.