Aillure Designs - Root Velocity

EXPERIMENTAL PLATFORMER

Sep. 2024 - Current

Me and my friend Emily teamed up in our Game Design Studio course at GSU to create a highly experimental concept. The game is still a work in progress and there is much work to do, but it is currently playable and presentable despite its roughness. We hope the procedural aspect shows for itself our dedication to making impressive and unique experiences as opposed to following and rehashing tired industry ideas.

Root Velocity is a platformer game where you can jump, run, and climb to reach higher places. The stand-out mechanic is our climbing system in which you control both hands individually to reach and grab.

Itch.io Page

PROCEDURAL GAMEPLAY

When we say "procedural" we are not being hyperbolic. Everything from the walking to the climbing is a combination of code, physics, and inverse cinematics with 0 animation data. In the settings menu there is a 'dev view' for you to see what's actually happening. This system was inspired by Grow Home [2015] | Ubisoft Reflections.

While a walk and climb in another game are trivial aspects to the movement, Root Velocity makes it the center of attention. There is far more potential and detail in a system based on non-deterministic physics. The appreciation and excitement behind such a complex player will intrigue people immediately.

Grow Home has a similar system in which you control both hands but its internal programming is too complicated to learn in a short period of time. Over the course of the fall semester I iterated prototypes over and over again, at some point having to entirely start over. This is definitely the hardest programming I have ever done.

So much complexity goes into this system. The final version seen above is basically a virtual body made from physics objects linked with different types of joints. This physical body isn't something the player would see, but the bones of the player mesh are effectively following the movement of these hidden physics objects using Unity's animation constraints.

We have the virtual body layer which involves a majority of the programming, such as the footstep detection, update, and placement system, the body upright system, the movement system, and body hover system.

The constraint layer involves less programming. Constraint targets and hints need to follow appropriate body parts and smoothly switch from one target to another. if needed.

What we used to create the character:

Unity 3D 2022 + C#
Unity Animation Rigging Package
Blender
Substance Painter

ART DIRECTION

The setting is post-apocalyptic, highly inspired by Fallout, but our art style will be playful and colorful. Emily is the creator of all 3D models in the project currently. Below are our hero objects.

She decided to focus solely on the base color map as opposed to smoothness, metallic, and normal maps. Any surface details are baked into the base color to allude to shininess, roughness, or metallicity. Most objects will have a simple color palette and utilize gradients. This creates a very soft and iconic look.

UI & PRESENTATION

Even despite this being a prototype, basic User Experience elements are important to us and so I created the main and pause menus.

In terms of accessibility, we want people to playtest our game using any mouse and hardware. We have settings for resolution and camera sensitivity to accommodate that. We've also provided a controls menu for quick access to that information.

In terms of presentation we've done a variety of things:

Credits page has quick access to our websites
Main menu is decorated and visually interesting
Custom cursor
Custom exe icon
Post Processing
Dev view option to reveal virtual player body