SEIZE
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A Fast-Paced Melee Action Game where you play as an elite cybernetic feline, infiltrating deep into enemy territory to reclaim what's yours.
SEIZE is a 8-month project built by a small team of 4 (2 Designers & 2 Artists) in Unreal Engine entirely using blueprints.
I am responsible for
Mechanic & System Design
Movement & Combat Design
Enemy Design
Level Design
Programming
I guided the vision of the game, modified it when it wasn’t working and made final, concrete directional decisions for the team.
SEIZE Gameplay
Below, I will showcase my thought process behind each major design decision.
Movement and Combat Design Intentions
Evolution of the Mechanics through In-Engine Technical Design
Enemy Design Intentions
Extra
Level Design
Blueprint Programming
How the Game Changed Overtime (Problems & Solutions)
Conclusion (Honest Self-Reflection and Critique)
MECHANIC & SYSTEM DESIGN: MOVEMENT & COMBAT PHILOSOPHY
My Approach on Movement & Combat — Why I Design Them This Way and Why It Works
Movement and combat centers around two major pillars:
Seamless Second-to-second Gameplay
Movement and combat must feel smooth, frictionless & work seamlessly together, ensuring that players can flow effortlessly between actions, if flow is ever disrupted, it should on player actions rather than design's
Power Fantasy Feel (Power in Strength & Speed)
Players must feel the sense of overwhelming power seen in media from john wick to solo leveling to that 1 v 10 feeling from IP man. The outnumbered but never outmatched feeling.
MOVEMENT SYSTEM
Beside basic WASD movement, the player movement kit comprises of omnidirectional abilities such as lunging and wallrunning which can be utilised in any directions, even directly up and down.
This is done to enable players
the freedom of movement to navigate the world creatively
to outmaneuver enemies with style
Additional Note: To limit lunging, instead of a charge-based system (as seen in Doom Eternal), a gauge-based system is used. Tapping consumes a small amount of energy, while holding consumes more, allowing players to control the distance of their lunges, enhancing the freedom of movement.
Omnidirectional Lunging
Omnidirectional Wallrunning
Player's In-Game Movement
COMBAT SYSTEM
The primary attack is a short-range pounce, while the secondary railgun attack launches enemies from afar, energising them to enable long-distance magnetic pounces with the drawback of a cooldown. These mechanics are designed with auto soft lock-ons.
This system allow players
to focus on fast, fluid repositioning rather than precise aiming.
to experience powerful and satisfying hits.
Additional Note: For the railgun, besides using it to setup long-distance magnetic pounces, it can also use to interupt and stun enemies.
Primary Attack: Short-range Pounce
Secondary Attack: Railgun shot followed by Long-range Pounce
SUPPORT SYSTEM
Additional mechanics are designed to further enhance player's moment to moment experience, making it more thoughtful and impactful.
PLAYER SUPPORT 01
The player's railgun is also design with the capability to slow down time. This is done to replicate the bullet time effects in movies, enhancing that John Wick–style, one-man-army intensity.
PLAYER SUPPORT 02
Purple batteries are placed around the play area. They are designed to replenish all player's abilities on hit, especially the railgun, allowing them to chain combo movement attacks shown in the gif.
EXTRA SUPPORT: PLAYER HEALTH CHARGING SYSTEM
The player has 3 Health Points and starts with 5 empty Energy Charge Point Slots.
To heal is to kill. Killing an enemy or destroying a battery cell will result in one energy charge absorbed. When five total energy charges are successfully absorbed, the player will be rewarded with 1 health point.
This is to incentivise constant motion, aggressive playstyle rewards players while passive playstyle does not which is the fast-paced power fantasy feel our team is looking for.
TEHNICAL DESIGN: EVOLUTION OF MOVEMENT SYSTEM
History of the Movement System — What Didn’t Work Then, What Works Now, and Why
Basic Movement
Early Iteration
During early production, player movement is more slippery where rate of acceleration/decceleration is slower. Gravity was also lower, making gameplay feel floaty and loose.
Playtesters found themselves slipping off platforms, causing frustrating gameplay.
Current Iteration
For better player control, movement values are changed in the UE5 CMC to make it tighter, this make it so that player can precisely change directions while dodging enemy attacks.
For better game feel, player's camera will tilt when they strafe to the sides. The camera will tilt a little when player is moving forward and to the side at the same time whereas the camera will tilt more when player is only moving to the sides.
Lunging / Pouncing
Early Iteration
The player's pounce was a multipurpose mechanic that is both a movement and combat ability. As the player pounce and hit an enemy, they will be repounce with a higher speed towards the direction of their aim.
Problems Encountered
After playtests, we realised a few problems. With one mechanic being both the main traversal and combat mechanic, players will frequently pounce and hit enemies unintentionally as they traverse through the level which is then exacerbated by the increased speed of the repounces. So, I separated them. One input for movement lunging, another input for combat pouncing. I also modified the increasing speed repounce mechanic so that players will only increase in speed when chaining movement lunges (up to a speed cap).
Current Iteration: Movement Lunging
Current Iteration: Combat Pouncing with auto soft lock-ons
Another aspect of the mechanic that was changed is the charge system. Previously, it is solely tap-to-lunge and uses two fixed charges that recharged every two seconds. This was later changed to both tap-to-lunge and hold-to-lunge system, where players can control the distance of their lunge while still being after to tap-to-lunge for shorter distances.
Wallrunning
Early Iteration
Since early production, the two design pillars of seamless and power fantasy gameplay have stayed true. For wallrunning, I reference Titanfall 2's game feel, such as its use of momentum and camera tilt.
Current Iteration
As the game's narrative grew into the player being a quadrupedal feline traversing through a city's skyline, it became apparent that an omnidirectional wallrun mechanic similar to a leopard is more suitable for the gameplay than the traditional horizontal wallrun in other games.
TEHNICAL DESIGN: EVOLUTION OF COMBAT SYSTEM
History of the Combat System — What Didn’t Work Then, What Works Now, and Why
Gun to Melee System
Early Iteration
In early production, gunplay was a core combat mechanic alongside the melee pounce mechanic, similar to the combat system in DOOM: The Dark Ages. As the game's narrative grew into the player being a quadrupedal feline rather than a humanoid, the combat switch to center around the feline melee pounce mechanic.
Current Iteration
Rather than having an arsenal of guns, we focused on the feline experience of pouncing and clawing enemies down being the combat core while being supported by a shoulder-mounted railgun that extends the range of the pounce attack by making enemies magnetisable.
Problems Encountered
Even in the current iteration of the combat, we realised playtesters will still frequently miss hitting an enemy because of the inconsistent arcs of the pounces. Hence, I added an auto soft lock-on system.
Auto Soft Lock-on System
One of the best changes added to the game is the auto soft lock-on / auto-aim system for the combat mechanics similar to other melee action games like God of War and Hades. In a fast-paced game with constant movement and angle changes, soft target lock allows consistent combat hits, making gameplay more satisfying and flow better while still challenging player's ability to aim to a certain extend. To visualise if an enemy is locked on, they will be marked.
Current Iteration: Railgun shots with auto soft lock-ons
Current Iteration: Combat Pouncing with auto soft lock-ons
MECHANIC & SYSTEM DESIGN: ENEMY TYPES
My Approach on Enemy Design — Why I Design Them This Way and Why It Works
Fodders
Most common enemies in the game, designed to keep constant pressure on players rather than being the main player killers.
Fodder: Range Variant
Stationary, fires energy projectiles at intervals; weak alone, dangerous in packs.
Also designed as a natural destination point for players moving from one platform to another.
Fodder: Melee Variant
Fast moving beings that chases player down and attacks player when in range.
Designed to keep player always on the move.
Mediums
Uncommon enemies that are fundamentally similar to fodders but designed with extra gimmicks that challenges player, forcing them to play differently.
Medium: Bubble Range Variant
Fundamentally a fodder range enemy, shielded in an energy bubble that is immune to pounce attack.
Energy bubble can only be destroyed using the railgun, breaking the player's routine of constantly pounce attacking.
Medium: Bomber Melee Variant
Fundamentally a fodder melee enemy, but drops three ticking time bombs upon death.
This forces the player to quickly reposition away, breaking the player's routine of constantly pushing forward.
Heavy
Rare enemies with more health, more firepower and the main player killers. In the case below, a shielded high fire rate minigunner.
EXTRA (My Other Contributions)
Level Design
Early Iteration: First Blockout
Early Iteration: Second Blockout
Level Design Summary
The game has three levels in total. To simplify an already tight development schedule, I decided to make all the levels part of the same Point of Interest where all the playable areas are along this circular wall. This approach enables asset reuse, making development more cost-effective by allowing the same assets to be used across multiple levels such as constantly having a central landmark always in player's sight. Level 1 and 2 uses one-third of the circle respectively while in Level 3, players will climb up the landmark tower in the middle.
Game World Overview
Level 1: Player traverse through one-third of the wall while battling enemies
Level 2: Player traverse through flying blimps above another one-third of the wall
Level 3: Player climbs the wall of the central tower while dodging obstacles
Technical Level Design
I implemented level triggers (checkpoints, UI, tutorials, and enemy spawners) along with out-of-bounds volumes, with all functionality handled through Blueprints.
Blueprint Programming
Overview
The entirety of the game features is programmed through UE5 blueprints. One philosophy is to keep everything as structured as possible to make it easier for my future self.
Blueprint: Player Overview
Blueprint: Player 'Handle Lunge' Function
Blueprint: Heavy Minigunner Enemy inherited from BP Base Enemy
How the Game Changed Overtime
(Problems Faced and Implemented Solutions)
This is a summarised history of SEIZE production with a focus on my contributions to the project.
Initial Ideation Phase
Our initial game idea started as a fast-paced movement shooter blending Titanfall 2 movement mechanics and Ultrakill synergetic combat.
Programming
With no prior experience in UE5, I taught myself the basics through YouTube while managing my other coursework. Albeit buggy and janky, managed to prototype out a wall-running mechanic for the first time in a month.
Over the next two months, I set up version control, trained the team on its usage, and worked on the first prototype build.
Game Vision
We went through major narrative iterations over the development but we started with a post-apocalyptic, anthropomorphic multibiome world where an outbreak caused its citizens to mutate with the story centering around five honored soldiers, similar to the story of Halo: Reach.
Early world concept visual:
Multiple Regions with multiple POIs
Early enemy concept visual:
Mutated Anthropomorph Enemy
Early player concept visual:
Anthropomorph Super Soldier
Problems
Our biggest issue early on was not understanding how much each team member could realistically deliver within a short timeframe.
Multiple biomes and characters equate to a lot of unique assets. We have underestimated scope and overestimated capacity and realised it’s time to scope down.
Solution
Through iterations, we further simplified the game world to enable asset reuse to three smaller areas to then two areas centering around two soldiers instead then finally into one centralised city centering only around the player character, the elite cybernetic feline at the end.
Grounded Realism Narrative Shift & Gameplay Redesign Phase
Before reaching its final version, the game underwent a significant narrative shift toward grounded realism. Characters and biomes were reimagined to follow real-world logic, while still incorporating evolved and intelligent traits.
This change directly influenced the game’s mechanics and system design. The feline gameplay was redesigned from a fast-paced movement shooter into a grounded, fast-paced stealth experience. The player character was redefined as a feline-like hunter, drawing closer inspiration from real-life big cats.
This fast-paced stealth prototype centers on a low-health player who can be taken down quickly, encouraging a hit-and-run playstyle. Players can stick rods into enemies, making them heavier and slowing both their movement and turning speed, which increases the chance of missed attacks.
Another enemy mechanic is deflection, if you pounce head-on at an enemy, they can counter your pounces by deflecting you off.
Problems
Tactical depth existed, but gameplay felt tedious and frustrating at this stage.
A grounded, realistic narrative exploring the 'what if' scenario of different animals gaining intelligence instead of humans will be very interesting if done well.
But Polishing and refining these features will lead to significant scope creep.
Solution
Ultimately, I decided to scrap this ambitious concept and return to the initial ideation phase. We refocused on the core appeal we originally intended, a fast-paced power fantasy over fast-paced steath. While realistic biology could enrich the narrative, it conflicted with our original vision. In the end, the project evolved into the fast-paced melee game that exists today.
Additional Scrapped Gameplay Mechanic: Parry
Another major mechanic that did not make it into the final version of the game was the Parry system, where all projectiles were parryable.
Problem
This lead to playtesters adopting a passive playstyle, waiting in place to parry incoming attacks rather than engaging in the intended push forward gameplay.
Solution
Looking back after development, this issue could have been mitigated by limiting parry to specific projectiles rather than all attacks, similar to the approach used in Dark Ages. Reintroducing the parry mechanic could make gameplay more thoughtful and less repetitive.
Conclusion (Honest Self-Reflection and Critique)
Gameplay
Problems
Playtesters mentioned that the gameplay feels smooth overall; however, combat can become repetitive quickly.
The wall-running system provides near-limitless movement freedom, allowing players to traverse almost any surface. While this adds mobility, it can also lead to confusion, as players may struggle to identify the intended path.
There were instances of movement-related awkwardness, such as accidental fall-offs or unintended wall-run activations.
Playtesters were also sometimes confused about where they were taking damage from.
Proposed Solutions
To mitigate repetitiveness, the gameplay could benefit from more thoughtful engagement, more moments where players are presented with real-time challenges that break away from their usual combat routine.
To address navigation issues, wall-running could be restricted to designated surfaces. Alternatively, levels could shift toward a more enclosed, room-based design that naturally guides player progression through the use of walls, ceilings, and corridors, rather than relying on the current open-city layout.
This approach may also help reduce movement-related awkwardness, such as accidental fall-offs or unintended wall-run activations.
Additionally, providing clear visual cues such as a damage direction indicator would help players identify the source of incoming damage, whether from projectiles or enemies.
Development
Problems
Unclear Vision & Core Appeal of the Final Game Product
While there are many ideas, there was no clear direction for: Narrative (especially), Level Design, Art Direction, Combat Identity, making the team prone to many changes.
E.g.,
Instead of focusing on fast-paced movement combat, we over-emphasized the aspect of playing as a feline, worldbuilding and lore, leading to working on multiple species, which significantly increased complexity with not enough effort going into actual player-experienced narrative content.
Player gameplay systems were developed without a clear understanding of intended level layout, resulting in combat design that would work in a type of level but not the intended level design.
Combat went through major iterations: Movement shooter to Fast-paced stealth to Movement melee took 4 out of the 6 months available, leaving limited time for polish and content.
No Producer keeping development resources in check
Resulted in excessive working hours & inefficient use of time and energy.
Unoptimised File Management
Project folders are crowded with random asset names without consistent naming convention for easy navigation.
Blueprints are messy and hard for future me to work with.
Solutions
Establish a clear game vision and direction early on with a clear core appeal (in this case, fast-paced combat gameplay).
Maintain strong production planning with a clear producer mananging a structured timeline.
Ensure clear file organization both within the project directory (engine) and the broader workspace (drive).
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