Combat Design Project
Team Size: 5 People
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Time Spent: 15 Weeks
For this combat design project, I worked with five other people to produce and create a full combat experience complete with enemies and a level designer for our character's abilities. This page will outline our process starting with ideation and finishing with our last implementation after 15 weeks.
Ideation
Week 1
Most of the first week’s time was spent laying down the groundwork for our project. Each person talked about what we wanted for our game. I wanted combat that would allow our character to feel acrobatic where their mobility isn't limited, and we could include some ranged combat. Some core ideas from this meeting were we want the enemy to be big, the avatar to have a lot of mobility, and the boss to have weak points. The weak points will allow the player to use ranged attacks and discourage them from spamming melee combos.
We looked through some reference videos that showcase nimble movement, specifically platform games like Blue Fire. Shadow of the Colossus was also referenced so we could get an idea of the enemy’s size and how the movement would feel a lot slower compared with the player. These reference videos were meant to visualize different aspects we could use from a variety of games so we could design the general feel for our combat experience.
After going through some of the features we want for our final project, we started with Unreal's default character and made some minor tweaks so the character can jump farther. We also adjusted the sprint acceleration, so the character has a more gradual acceleration to prevent it from feeling sticky.
Week 2
The second week of our project was spent talking about our avatar’s movement and the different states that would affect their gameplay. We spent some time talking about our dodge and whether we wanted to give our character a basic roll ability or a faster teleport mechanic. We used reference videos of Tunic when designing for teleportation. I referenced a part in Furi where the player has to teleport through a wall of damage to reach the enemy and inflict damage. Furi had a lot of face-paced movement and, although the enemy wasn’t large, had a lot of inspiration we could use for our game.
After looking through the reference videos and looking more through the robot concepts we want to model our character after, we decided that the teleport ability made more sense than a basic roll. We acknowledged that we would later need to come up with some type of cooldown for the teleport, so players aren’t spamming the ability and constantly darting across the map.
The second feature we decided to add this week was a hit back collision to show when the player takes damage. This addition was a simple way to visually see that a player will get knocked back if they hit a collision box that will later cause damage once we get to that stage of development.
Week 3
This week, we talked about some more of our abilities when moving around the world. We've been a lot more focused on nailing his movement since we want it to feel very agile rather than working on applying any attacks from the enemy or the avatar. We talked about adding in a double jump and some sort of limited ability that would propel the player a little bit in the air but not as much as a double jump would.
We looked at Jak and Daxter to reference that feature. In that game, players can perform a spin attack that would keep the avatar in air for a bit longer and allow them to feel a little more in control for where they want to go.
We also started to discuss our abilities and how we wanted the character to look. There was some talk about basing the character off a blocky robot, but we talked about how that wouldn't necessarily fit the quick, agile feel we want for player controls. For now, we're getting inspiration from Eve, the robot from Walle, because of her sleek design.
Going off the envelope in class, we discussed adding two new movement abilities: a double jump and a fast fall (like the one used in super smash). We figured that we can implement some attack patterns where players would want to quickly avoid an attack in air. It was noted that when we’re setting up enemy attack patterns, we would have to add in some deliberate ones that encourage players to use the fast fall ability instead of simply teleporting away.
This week was a lot of going through issues of the project on my computer and making sure that it was all set up correctly. A few of our team members helped set up the GAS plugin and I went through the document on adding abilities with this new plugin.
Week 4
This past week we talked about the abilities we wanted to add because up until this week, we've been focused on player movement. For one of the abilities, we decided to combine a movement ability we had (teleport) and add it to a punch that will land on the enemy. This rocket punch will help give the player an agile feel as they move very quickly across the map. Sonic was referenced for this movement type. In that game, there is a split second of when the attack hits and when the player actually moves across the space. That short delay helps players orientate themselves and feel like their punch that landed was a direct cause of moving to that exact location. That delay is what we want for our game so we give players a visual point of reference to prevent them from feeling too jarring.
For this week, I was trying to work on a hit punch that would lead to a 3-hit combo which narrowed down to a single hit. I need to finish up the tutorial on and push it to the project. I've also been looking up some polish effects to add for this coming week - specifically for animations and sound. We want to add a lot of visual aid for when players use their abilities. The VFX will also help us sell that our character is a robot.
Week 5
This week, we broke up the different polish tasks between the team that included VFX, SFX, and certain movement that add player readability for the player when they activate a different state. Some of the effects we wanted to add would help readability for our teleport and fast fall abilities.
I was working on a rocket thruster for our character's back that will make it look like the robot is getting a boost. The VFX and the SFX for that movement as well as a blueprint for moving the thruster the opposite way when activating the fast fall. My original goal was a solid blur of fire to convey a fast moving boost like the image below on the left.
The actual VFX ended up being more of a flame because of time but I still want to work on it to make it look faster and more like a robot's jetpack instead of just flame coming out of a rocket ship.
Week 6
This week was spent playtesting our current level. This week I decided to work on some of the assets I tried to do in previous weeks. I reworked my fire VFX. When I first made it, the trail dragged behind and distracted from the main body. Turning off the drag made the trail blurry and it took me some time to figure out how to reduce the trail without ruining the effect I wanted to achieve. After reworking, I got the fire to a good spot and it’s not as distracting.
Week 7
This week was focused on attacks we want from the enemy and how we expect it to move and threaten the player. The one big boss is still our goal, and we have split up its main attacks coming from its body that players will have to dodge along with weak points that become vulnerable after a certain amount of time. Players can decide whether they want to spend time focusing on the weak points or just the main body in general. Some weak points will have more health and are harder to remove but offer a bigger reward to the player since it will take off more of the enemy’s health. We used Horizon Zero Dawn as a comparison since that game also encourages players to look for weak points. It’s satisfying once you’re able to destroy it and staggers the enemy, which makes the fight a lot easier and rewards the risk taken.
I spent this week working on a spark VFX that will play once the player makes contact with their combo hit. I decided to go with a spark effect because of our robot character. The effect has a few different sparks layered in to make it look more dynamic.
Week 8
I started working on a hit flash that will indicate to the player that they took damage. Right now, the only way players can tell they were damaged is if they look at their health bar. With this hit flash, the player will flash red whenever they take damage. I still need to work on hooking it up to the character, but the material and blueprint has been set up in the project.
Week 9
This was a slower week due to our team going out of town and not having a lot of time to add changes to the project. I did try to fix up the hit flash for our character since the code wasn't working the way I intended. The flash still isn't working and I will need to spend more time on it in the coming weeks.
Week 14
After talking with the team, we discussed the possibility of adding in hoards of enemies along with the giant boss. That would give more variation to the player and could encourage them to move across the map using their abilities. Our engineer added hit boxes to our map, with one that gave our players the upgrade of the rocket fist so they didn't start out the level with this ability. He is working on adding in enemy AI for ones that will follow the character around and provide hit back damage. Based on all this information, I started designing a level for our players to complete that would have them start out without their rocket fist which would then allow them to access previously inaccessible areas. The intent was to provide rooms that the player would knock down and there would be enemies in those rooms.