Solo Developed Project Overview

Designed and Implemented Game Features

Raid Party Systems

• Aggro/Threat system - Enemy AI units select and change targets dynamically based on damage taken and player healing cast in the area

  • • Threat modifiers exist to generate more threat-per-damage for "Tank" characters (so tanks don't need to do more damage than damage dealers to keep boss-focus) and less threat per healing for healers (since healing generates threat on all targets in the area)

    • Additionally, the threat tracking system is modular enough to allow for "Threat Redirecting" abilities which allow players to reassign threat generated from one (squishy) unit to another (tankier) unit

• Auto-targeted Area of Effect Healing Abilities - To make it easier to manage 10 units with 3 abilities, players are able to choose healing abilities which will automatically find the most injured cluster of friendly units and cast heals to overlap them

  • • Similarly, players can also pick passive abilities or auto-cast damage abilities to allow them to focus on controlling fewer abilities in combat (or none at all, and just focus on unit movement optimization and dealing with boss mechanics)

• Game speed / Time control systems - To handle the frantic real-time nature of combat, players are able to issue commands like movement and ability usage during pauses. Additionally, to allow for a lower barrier to entry, players are able to slow down the game speed during combat to make the boss mechanics less reflex intensive

• Command queue system - All spells, abilities, attack commands and movement orders function in a queue system which can be added to by holding Ctrl. Players can queue a long chain of actions (including while on pause) to be carried out automatically while they react to the changing circumstances of the boss fight

• Character ability/item/unit loadout saving systems - A core pillar of the game is highly customizable parties, so players are able to pick and choose which combination of the 5 unit types they would like to bring to each battle, each of which have up to 10 ability choices and can be equipped with stat-increasing gems. This, in addition to adding custom names and colour tints to units, can all be saved into loadouts which are better for handling different types of boss fights 

• Damage/Healing Meter - In order to track and optimize unit performance, players can see a real-time display of each of their units' output of both damage, healing, and overhealing in a dynamically updating bar-graph which ranks all units in the party by both per second and overall values.

• Procedural Boss Generation - In addition to hand-designed, set-piece, capstone bosses, the game features a seed-based procedural boss generation system to provide variety in battles taking place between capstones. Procedural bosses select several abilities from a pool of actions and, based on assigned difficulty modifiers, will change their damage and cooldown rates to change the level of challenge to players. 

  • • The abilities assigned to bosses are broken into multiple categories to ensure that mechanics mesh well together without asking players to do contradictory things. 

• Loot Generation and Management Systems - Loot, in the form of equippable "gems" are generated according to an offensive and defensive stat budget which scales with difficulty. Players can buy and sell these in town, as well as transfer them from their inventory to storage containers in town. 

  • • Players can also "recut" gems to modify the stats on a gem, changing 1 stat on a gem to another stat of the same category (offensive or defensive). For example changing Armor to Healing Received, or changing Attack Speed to Damage per hit

      • • This modification slightly reduces the value of the new stat, to incentivize players to still search for gems the best default stat rolls

Rubble Systems

• Assist mode - The game features a robust assist mode, allowing players to modify the difficulty of levels via changing the player controller's powers. The player can modify things like number of mid-air jumps, amount of gravity, and game speed to help ensure all players can complete the game. 

• Level Select + Level Skip - In addition to a level selection menu which unlocks via player progress, players who are stumped by a puzzle or stuck on a level for at least a few minutes are given the option in the pause menu to skip the level entirely. 

• Level Speed / Time Tracking - To encourage replayability and optimization, levels are timed and the game keeps track of all player attempts in the menus to allow for comparisons with other players. This functionality is featured in other "precision platformer" games which have found a sizeable audience of their own, and including it here is an attempt to appeal to those players.

• Animal Fact Loading Screen Messages - Instead of "loading screen tips" which are generally unhelpful at best, or confusing at worst, the loading screens in this game feature interesting or amusing facts about animals in the real world

Rubble Level Mechanics

• Rubble Blocks - The first block introduced, these shatter when shot, breaking into many pieces of rubble to be used for things like filling chasms, revealing invisible walkways, creating climbable hills, and carving into bridges.

• Tunneling Blocks - These blocks leave little to no debris behind and are used when the goal is to give the player the option to create tunnels or paths through to another area. This might mean digging their way up or down to different sections of a level they can't jump between, carving landing sections into platforming-section landing blocks, or just having tunnel blocks as a breakable barrier that limits physics objects from rolling onwards in a puzzle. 

• Rebuilding Shot - The biggest design limitation of having destructible environments in a puzzle game is "What happens if the player breaks everything?" You cannot have every puzzle be solvable with 100% destruction or it's not a puzzle, and you cannot game-over the player for breaking the wrong things by mistake. Instead, the player gains a secondary fire mode which rebuilds any blocks hit (as long as they're not standing in them) to allow the player to get another shot at a puzzle. (This is also used in many puzzles where players may need to destroy and respawn objects to help with platforming or object transportation.

• Conveyors - Procedurally generated conveyors allow me to create variable length, speed, and directional conveyors which will interact with rubble, physics objects, and the player, to build puzzles around. These can also have their features changed in real time, allowing for puzzles which involve changing the length or other properties in-game using buttons in the world.

• Terrain Effects (Ice, Lava, Pressure Lights, Speed Zones) - Various effects happen based on players simply walking across sections of the floor, these are each colour-coded to signal them to players. Ice lowers player movement control sending them sliding near uncontrollably, requiring them to bump into things (or rebuild breakable walls) to stop. Lava is a common obstacle and instant death zone. Pressure lights are used in one level which light up when touched and need to be lit up in patterns to progress puzzles. Speed zones area areas where the player's movement speed is drastically increased to allow for longer jumps or faster avoidance of incoming obstacles.

• Gravity/Super Gravity Zones - Coloured volumes that let the player move and jump with significantly lower gravity to assist in platforming. Super Gravity Zones also provide increased jumping power and air control (and are denoted by a different colour)

• Jump Zones - Areas in which give the player a near unlimited number of mid-air jumps. This is used in both platforming traversal and as an obstacle itself in levels where there is no safe area to land on, and the player must avoid hitting other obstacles.

• Flip Platforms - Walkable platforms which will rotate a fixed distance each time they're shot. These are used for platforming, physics object manipulation, and even as a makeshift catapult.

• Pilotable Platforms - Platforms with 4 buttons on top which activate by player touch like a dance pad. These allow players to navigate a level, but also feature prominently in later levels where obstacles like lava or moving walls require players to move the platform or jump between these sorts of devices to progress.

• Falling Platforms - Obstacles which leave a shadow on the ground beneath them, giving players an indication where to run to in order to find a safe spot once the roof starts to collapse. In later iterations these also shift directions and rearrange themselves automatically to make it harder to avoid being squished. 

• Stalactites - Large cones which can be shot off the roof of a level to work as makeshift platforms. The twist is that they also sink into the floor (which is lava on their level), giving the player a balancing act of shooting down enough platforms to jump across without shooting them down so early that they sink out of use.

• Trip Wires - Laser indicators which, if touched, trigger massive projectiles to be fired at the player to destroy the destructible platforms they're standing on. 

• Light Orbs - Objects that light up when hit, illuminating a small area of an otherwise pitch-black level, but turning off all other light orbs in the process. These create the challenge of needing to decide when to light up where you're going instead of where you are, despite needing to use both pieces of information to effectively make some jumps. Some orbs are also in motion, dragging their pools of light around the level to give more indication of what's nearby.

Systems Design and Game Analysis Content 

Level Design

3D Modeling + Rigging and Animation

Writing