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Protection from life's storms
Project Umbrella is a 3rd person platform-shooter made as a final-year project for my master's degree. This solo project encapsulates lots of complex game mechanics that mix all together to create the peculiar gameplay of this quick experience.
This game takes inspiration from games such as Control, Returnal, and Ratchet & Clank.
A Multifunctional Umbrella
A Multifunctional Umbrella
The gameplay of this game orbits around the gimmick of this special umbrella.
It can help the player to glide and cover longer distances, be used as a shield to protect the player, or even be held as a rifle to fire (exactly as we all did when we were 10!), and even more!
The mixture of all these mechanics allows players of different skills to experience different play styles against enemies. A headshot, a perfect parry, a dash at the right time? None of these mechanics are required to beat the game, but that does not mean that their use will not be rewarding!
First Prototype
Final Version
The Perfect Parry
The Perfect Parry
Opening the umbrella at the right time before an upcoming attack will allow the player to also damage back the attacker. This mechanic adds a high-risk high-reward to the playstyle of the players. The inspiration from games such as the Zelda series was super useful!
The Feel of Hitting Someone
The Feel of Hitting Someone
When in every game the player does something, the more rea
Lots of attention has been put in the sensation transmitted to the player when an enemy is hit. Inspired by strong exponents such as the Resident Evil Series (example below), I wanted to replicate this feeling as much as possible.
When for example an enemy is charging the player, an headshot hit will cause the immediate stop of whatever action they were performing.
When hit on the other parts of the body, their body will have a soft reaction to the impact!
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
The enemies in Project Umbrella are smart and aggressive. They were implemented to cover the basic needs that a player might expect from an enemy in a videogame.
The Melee Unit has exclusively close-range attacks. While the first one is a simple melee hit, the other will launch the character from a further range to hit the player. If this unit is aimed at, they will block incoming projectiles.
The mage unit covers the medium-long-range battlefield. They will shoot 2 different projectiles that will be lethal if ignored. Hopefully, the player will not try to send them back!
For this project, I had to cope with the fact that I'm not a programmer. For most of the design work I usually do that's rarely a big deal, with the exception of one thing... The AI.
That is why for this project, I patiently followed a lengthy tutorial series, made by Ali Elzoheiry, that taught me many amazing insights about Unreal Engine AI. As always though, my work did not stop at just copying and pasting, once I started understanding more tricks and techniques, I had the chance to adapt and expand some of the core functions of these enemies to my project needs!
Constant Iteration and improvements
Constant Iteration and improvements
During the lengthy development of this game many things evolved since their first concept. For example I never though that I had to add a mechanic to detect ledges and let the character climb it, yet after implementing it I wondered why I did not work on it weeks earlier! This can be applied for other tinier details and quality of life improvements. It is an example of how I'm not hesitant of going back to the blueprint if it is an update that will heavily benefit the enjoyment of the game. The playtest phase of this project was extremely helpful! Receiving feedback on what could be improved is always extremely precious.
Inspirations:
Inspirations:
Check out other game/level design projects I've made:
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