Level Design
I had a certain plan in mind when I started drawing the paper map for Cliff Town, and that was having 3 distinct sections of the level. I planned on having a low level on the road, a medium level on the rooftops, and a high level on the cliff, with powerups to be claimed on the exposed low level, to add a bit of risk and reward. However as we added new weapons and changed the abilities, we needed to change the environment too. In the final version of the level, the cliff is still present, but now the buildings are scattered across the road instead of lined up. A key reason I did this was because the range on the revolvers had increased, so I needed to obscure sightlines and make sure it was impossible to shoot the other player while they were in spawn, even after using the piece’s full movement. Likewise, I made sure t place the spawn locations far enough awy from each other that TNT couldn't be thrown into the enemy's spawn, since it travels in an arc but with a shorter distance and lifetime.
There are a few reasons as to why so many powerups were placed in the level. Each powerup does something different that we thought would bring something interesting to the game, so we made sure to include at least one of each. We also made sure powerup placements were nearly symetrical, so that both teams had a chance to try them out. There are multiple health packs around the level, since it's effect is the simplest and has the least sway over the game, each team gets one whiskey near their spawn, but across an exposed sightline for each team to give to a piece of their choice, and a single jetpack is placed in the enter of town, meaning players must race for the item that gives the biggest boon. Each powerup in the level has some degree of risk/reward. The items that have more risk to obtain, offer a greater reward.
Game Design
We designed the core concept of the weapons collectively as a team. We knew we wanted a gun, an explosive, and a melee weapon, and I took it from there designing the specifics of the weapons. The pistol, even after the damage was reduced from 50 to 25, still did good damage from long range, so I needed to differentiate the other two in how they were used, since if the only difference was damage they would be straight upgrades or downgrades and something would be ignored by the players. The dynamite was simple, as it is thrown in an arc and deals damage to multiple enemies in an area, and for the shovel I decided to give it a high amount of knockback, meaning if a player takes a risk by getting close to an enemy, they can potentially yield a great reward by knocking them off the map.
When designing the health and abilities of the pieces, I drew inspiration from traditional chess. The pawn, being the weakest piece, has the lowest health and movement, likewise the king has the same movement distance but more health. The queen is the opposite, she has the most health and highest movement distance since she is the strongest. The bishop moves unconventionally, so I gave it a higher jump height. And the rook is a steadfast piece that can be used defensively when castling, so it is more resistant to knockback than other pieces.