QFIELD – A mix of fast-paced shooters and Rocket League

QFIELD is a soccer-shooter described as ‘Quake meets Rocket League’. Robin Hub from Frozen Phoenix tells us about its development and rules.

From the initial idea to QFIELD

We, the two founders of QFIELD, are both avid FPS players and we did spend quite a bit of time having fun in Rocket League. We like games with no clutter and simple-yet-deep design. Games you can have fun with for 10 minutes as well as many hours. Games you can ease into, but then spend as much time as you like mastering them.

One day, we were playing Quake and I shot my friend down with a rocket while he was midair. It just felt amazing and so we asked ourselves, can we build a game that captures this feel? And there we were, thinking about fusing Quake and Rocket League.

QFIELD screenshot
QFIELD (Work in progress screenshot)

What a simple idea right? Yeah. We thought the same and we were surprised by not finding many games out there like the one we envisioned. We are professional game engineers with a very broad skillset. I shipped Ori and the Will of the Wisps with Moon Studios while my friend shipped Kingdom Come: Deliverance and is now the Lead Engineer at Warhorse Studios. Therefore, the initial prototype was implemented fast.

The prototype took no longer than a few weeks, but the barebones first-person Rocket League with a weapon was not fun. Like, not at all! It was just a rocket mayhem with two teams “pushing” the ball to the opponent’s side and eventually scoring almost by accident. The player did not feel in control, so we wanted to give up and move onto another prototype.

QFIELD game screenshot
QFIELD (Work in progress screenshot)

That said, the feel of the game wasn’t the one we had in our minds at the beginning and so we decided to spend a little bit more time on this prototype and see if we can get that feel. A “bit more time” ended up being a year of countless iterations on the core abilities, shapes and sizes of the arena and general polish.

However, that year gave us the much-needed confidence that the initial idea can eventually work and so we decided to continue with the project and started looking for people to help us with the art content.

The Game

As already mentioned, the core of QFIELD can be explained easily as “Quake meets Rocket League”. It’s a first-person soccer shooter where two teams are fighting each other, trying to score a ball into the opponent’s goal.

Aside from the online multiplayer PvP against friends or opponents from all over the world, the game offers a great single-player experience. Players can practice through a carefully crafted campaign of offline challenges, or they can fight against AI opponents of various difficulty that are hard to discern from real players.

We do believe that we managed to hit our target and that the cliché “Easy to get into, but hard to master” applies to QFIELD. Let’s take a brief look at how the game works and how individual game mechanics fit together.

QFIELD (Work in progress screenshot)

There is only one weapon, the Rocket Launcher. The exploding rocket has a radius of effect, so the player doesn’t have to hit the ball directly and can instead explode the last rocket anywhere mid flight on a button press. That way the player can make a save or score a goal from an “impossible” angle.

The rocket launcher can be overcharged to get a rocket with stronger impact on the ball. The overcharge has a limit though, and once the maximum is reached, the rocket is auto released.

Ammo is a scarce resource and was balanced throughout the entire production. Players need to get enough rockets to not be frustrated, but not too many so that they value every single one and they don’t turn the game into a “mayhem”.

In QFIELD, they get a certain amount every time they respawn, there are pickups carefully placed around the arena and rockets auto-recharge to a certain maximum so that players don’t find themselves cornered without a chance to shoot.

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In QFIELD, a player needs to score a goal by shooting the ball with their rocket launcher and the game takes that very seriously. The ball kills the player upon contact no matter its speed and unless the player is dashing the impact has zero effect on the ball.

We really wanted the players to focus on the main mechanic of the game and not just push the ball to the opponent’s side like they would in Rocket League. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it does change the gameplay drastically in a direction we didn’t want to go.

QFIELD screenshot
QFIELD (Work in progress screenshot)

Furthermore, players can’t kill each other. That was another conscious decision we made so that players focus on the ball. Pretty much every FPS is about players killing each other and this game is not one of them.

To quickly move around and react to ever changing situations in the arena the player can leverage the dash ability. The number of dashes is limited to three, a depleted dash is recharged every second and once the player uses up all the dashes, she needs to wait until all three are recharged.

Mastering dash management is one of the keys to success in QFIELD.

Remember I mentioned the ball always kills the player on contact? It’s true, but with the dash the player can make it count!

Dashing into the ball is the most powerful move in the game. The player can use it to finish off an action and score or to save a goal in “panic” when out of ammunition. The price is death and a few seconds wait for a respawn, so the player must time it properly.

QFIELD (Work in progress screenshot)

Jump is the complementary move to dash. It’s there to get you into the air from anywhere in the arena. Why is that useful? Well, dashes are faster and move the player over a longer distance in the air.

Not only the player can jump, but she can also double jump or slow the movement down in the apex while holding the button. That allows the player to align with the ball and perfectly aim ball dashes.

The Meta

Having a great gameplay is not enough today to keep players interested in the game long-term and so we offer them progression and various visual customizations.

Every match matters as the player gathers XP much needed to progress through the current season pass and unlock visual upgrades. Players can customize their rocket explosion, goal explosion, character head and the rocket launcher.

For more on QFIELD and to try the game for free at Steam Next Fest, check out the game on Steam here. You can also join its Discord server here.

Be sure to check out the Into Indie Games roundup of the latest weekly game releases here!

This Article was written by: Harry Cole

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