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To Hel and Back (2021-2022)
To Hel and Back (2021-2022)
Norse mythology inspired hack and slash rougelike.
https://10hpstudios.itch.io/to-hel-and-back
Started as a school project with 10 other students, I worked with game mechanics, balance, UI and level design. 5 of us continued working on it afterwards and it got nominated for the Skövde Academic Game Award (SAGA) in 2021
Made in Unity, Group Project
Things I worked on
Worked on design document with rest of the team, planned out features
Planned out level designs in Unity using the Probuilder addon.
Worked with the graphics team and placed out models and props in the level to connect level design and flavor.
Balanced by the game by the strength of different attacks from the character and the enemies.
Designed and balanced the attacks of different enemies with help from the programmers and artists.
Designed and balanced the rune system, power ups given per level completed.
Very early plan for how the game would look, with added UI concepts
I started by mapping out levels with Probuilder shapes then replaced them with actual models.
Green cylinder represents the player, red represents a melee enemy and blue represents a ranged enemy
The game has powerups in forms of runes that you can choose between at end of each level. I worked on designing and balancing them.
Working with assets and lighting alongside our graphical team.
Design Challenges
Axe Throw
One of the challenges of To Hel and Back was making the game feel unique with the limited resources we had. One mechanic we used to solve this was the axe throw. Sif, the main character has two axes, a battle axe she uses in melee and a throwing axe.
The player can throw their axe, then by clicking again, teleport to where the axe landed. This can be used to reposition, get out of harms way, teleport to ranged enemies to attack them in melee and more.
The teleport is however is the players only movement tool, and needs to thrown before it can be used. We talked about having a dash mechanic, but choose not to, as only having the axe throw led to more tactical play and planning.
Gif of Throwing the axe and teleporting to it.
Gif or large ranged enemy shooting homing projectiles. Projectiles are made so they can only turn so sharply and can be evaded by teleporting or going close to a wall. Homing enemies are dangerous when supported by other enemies.
Homing Enemies
We had multiple ideas for how to make interesting enemies that feel different. Enemies with a charge attack, enemies with shields that can only be attacked from one direction, enemies with different weapons. However all of those would require more assets and coding.
We started with two enemies, one melee and one ranged, then made a larger stronger version of both. To differentiate the larger ranged enemy I tried making their attack different. Shooting multiple projectiles, exploding projectiles, homing projectiles.
We decided on a slower homing projectile that follows the player, as this creates a new type of danger that the player still has multiple ways of getting out of. From feedback its seems like the players like these enemies, finding them challenging but not overly hard.
Aggression
One problem we were trying to fix at end stage of development was the the fact that the optimal tactic was to engage as few enemies as possible at a time. While we wanted promote tactical play, pulling in one enemy at a time from aggro range is not engaging gameplay and doesn't fit the Viking theme of the game. We also wanted avoid mechanics required use of more buttons.
Some people on the team suggested some mechanic that penalized not fighting enemies when possible, like losing health when not in combat. However I would rather want a mechanic that rewarded you for being in battle, instead of penalizing you for being out of it. Mechanics that punish the player have to be clearly displayed and easy to understand otherwise they can feel annoying and unfair.
While we didn't have time to implement it, I designed a combo mechanic where you build a up a aggression meter by hitting enemies and then healed based on the size of your combo when you stopped. This would be a risk-reward mechanic as you would have to stop your combo to heal.
Another alternative would be that the player would enter a "viking fury" after hitting with x attacks in quick succession, where they would have a percentile life steal to restore health
Having one of those mechanics would mean that pulling in one enemy at time is still possible, but no longer the optimal strategy. This would of course make the game easier overall but that can be balanced against by having more and harder enemies.
Other Ideas
While To Hel and Back is finished and the team has split of to work on new projects, we still had lots of ideas that never got implemented. We were discussing bosses, new weapons, new levels and more things.
One of my favorite things design wise that I didn't design was how our enemies looked. Aside from having a cool model thanks to our graphics team they also came up with the idea of the animal heads. There is actually only one character model in the game, Sifs (the main characters) model. The enemies also use this model, but due to the animal masks they wear and some color magic you might not notice that at first.
This animal theme was also a really fun design prompt; designing enemies based on Scandinavian animals and the folklore around them. Implemented in the game we have the melee enemy with a wolf mask and the ranged enemies with a crow mask. I also have design notes and ideas for;
Moose mask, a fast melee enemy with a charge attack
Bear mask, a tough melee enemy with a grapple ability. and a lot of health.
Fox mask, a tricky enemy that can go invisible (or translucent) and backstab you.
Beaver mask, a defensive focused enemy with a wooden shield.
Snake mask for one of those annoying enemies that poison you (with some counterplay, because poison can be terrible to fight against in some games)
Lynx mask for a supportive enemy with slowing frost attacks.. And so on.
Another thing I designed that never got implemented where the root levels, where the roots of Yggdrasil reach down through the floor and provide terrain. We were discussing this being the next "biome" in the game but we never got that far . Still I really like that idea and wish I could see one of those levels with same level of art and polish that our current levels have
Similarly I had designed levels with holes and gaps in them that you could throw your axe over. We never got time make assets for the edges and implement them but it could have been a fun challenge, especially in combination with some more enemies.
Working in Probuilder to design levels
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