In this competitive action game, two opponents alternately chase each other in an arena. On this project, my main responsibilities were 3C design, focusing on juiciness and maneuverability, and combat design, emphasizing the competitive aspect on a micro-scale aside with iteration on the general game's rules.
My main contribution
System Design
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Main game loops
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Iterating
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Balancing
Combat design :
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Abilities design
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Timings & metrics
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Balancing roles
3C Design
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Emotional drives
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Parkour adaptation
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Readability and juice
If you're willing to learn more
Combat design & System Design
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Abilities micro-design: strengths & weaknesses
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Abilities balancing: timings & metrics
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Balancing both roles of the game
Designing the combat system presented a unique challenge due to the asymmetric and expeditive nature of the game. The system's distinctive feature is its ability to conclude the combat encounter upon initial contact, which is uncommon. Plus each round had a "Predator" and a "Prey" that had the same controls and abilities. Consequently, I needed to devise engaging interactions without direct physical contact between players.
For each ability, I questioned what would be it
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platforming utility for the user,
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offensive prowess for the Chaser (player chasing their opponent)
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defensive capabilities for the Runner (player feeling their opponent)
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tactical opportunities for opponents to exploit, irrespective of their role
Taking Inspiration from animation-driven combat systems, I designed each ability to address these criteria.
While designing, I made briefing documents for programmers where I listed all the parameters I needed to have control over for balancing purposes. It allowed me to nerf and up abilities easily depending on playtest results. It was a very useful tool all along the production.
On the other part, I also made benchmarks on parkour movements to help the animation / FX team design animations and FX that would enhance the movement programmers worked on.
3C Design & Gamefeel
While working on the Character, I was confronted with the challenge of matching real-life-inspired parkour animations that we wanted for fluid movement flow with game constraints
In real life, jumping over a wall requires the body to anticipate the action before reaching it. However, executing an input two seconds before the jump is not feasible in a game context, leading to a lack of responsiveness that can make the game feel clunky.
Therefore, I needed movements that could be executed at the last moment without disrupting the animation flow. After benchmarking parkour movements and figures, I chose less impressive movements that maintained fluidity, compensating the juiciness through FX and camera effects.
This challenge was highly instructive, highlighting the constraints of working with third-person humanoid characters in game production. It also fueled my desire to seek out new experiences in 3C (controls, camera, and character) systems in the future and work with animators and FX artists on enhanced abilities.
Perfect & normal vault, 2 versions of the same ability requiring different animation, gamefeel, FX and feedbacks.
