Starsever

UE5 Passion Project Spring 2025

Starsever is a turn-based RPG where you utilize a party of characters to take on waves of enemies. Different enemies will require different skillsets to take on, so you must keep expanding your roster of characters and your strategies to succeed.

I set out to make this game so that I could develop the design skills necessary to work on a live-service game, to increase my technical skills and prototype these systems within Unreal Engine's blueprints.

Gameplay screenshot of Starsever; all model assets are from Paragon

Rewarding Player Choice and Mastery

Starsever serves player choice by having important decisions before, during and after combat. These choices allow players to make and complete short, medium and long term goals like; defeating harder enemies, obtaining new characters, and ascending their party to all new heights.

Slay Your Enemies

Combat consists of a turn-based combat system where a characters speed determines their place and frequency in the turn order
Players can have a team of up to 4 characters, so they should choose based on the challenge in front of them
Characters are able to perform 2-4 actions based on their ascendancy starting with their basic ability and technique ability
After completing combat, earn experience and rewards that can be used to upgrade abilities

Ascend

There are breakpoints in character progression, where the player will use special materials to Ascend a character, increasing the characters level cap and unlocking something new:
- First Ascension: Ultimate unlocked, max level is 20
- Second Ascension: Second Technique, max level is 30
- Third Ascension: Key Talent, max level is 40
- Fourth Ascension: New Talent, max level is 50
- Final Ascension: Final Talent, level capped
As an example on the right, we have Sparrow - a Dark Marksman who starts her journey with only single-target shots to neutralize foes.
When she ascends for the first time, she unlocks her Ultimate ability that allows her to fire off an explosive bonus shot whenever her allies attack.
This ascension opens up new team-oriented strategies and her ability to damage multiple foes.

Example of a character after Ascending

Combat Designed for Extensibility

Starsever's elemental typing system and niche-focused encounter design provides a lot of flexibility when it comes to potential future updates. Since characters can provide value in different ways - like countering elements, filling unique roles or enabling certain strategies - it provides opportunities to design challenges that allows different units to shine.

Power of the Elements...

Each character in Starsever can be 1 of 5 elements: Storm, Flame, Frost, Light, or Dark
All damage dealt from these characters, except for their basic ability, will be of that elemental type.
All enemies have 2-3 elemental weaknesses, causing them to take more damage from attacks of those same weaknesses.

...with a twist!

Elemental Pairing: Every element grants a party-wide bonus when you field two characters of the same type.
This system adds another layer to forming teams - exploit enemy weaknesses and maximize synergies.

Ex. Roaring Blaze (2 Flame)

- Increases party ATK by 15%
- Flame characters have a 30% chance to burn enemies when attacking.

Focusing on Niches

Character Archetypes

In addition to elements, Starsever's characters are defined by their archetypes.
The archetypes in Starsever include: Berserker, Assassin, Tank, Caster, Marksmen, Boosters, Healers, and Shielders
For example, Sparrow is a marksmen. Marksmen primarily deal damage through their successive Basic Attacks and excel at single target encounters.

Enemy Archetypes

Since there are character archetypes, there can be enemy archetypes to counterbalance the strengths and weaknesses.
An example of an enemy archetype is Armored, armored enemies take less damage from Basic Attacks, which could cause Sparrow some issues.

Assemble Your Party

With elements, synergies, and enemies to consider; now it's time to put the team together.
An example team on the left is Sparrow, Aurora, Gideon, and Twinblast
- Sparrow can handle the stronger enemies with her high single target damage
- Aurora deals with waves of minions with her slowing capabilities and multitarget damage
- Gideon keeps the team alive with his healing flames
- Twinblast supports the team with damage buffs and activates the Flame pairing bonus with Gideon

Together, this team is ready to tackle a variety of challenges.

Progression Systems for Long-Term Engagement

(Replace Images/Maybe add charts)

In Starsever, players always have something to improve, whether its a new character to level up, better gear they could obtain, or unlocking more Ascendancies through their account level.

Character Progression

Characters level up through combat, steadily increasing their power until they must Ascend
Succeeding in combat also rewards upgrade materials that allows players to invest in their characters even more through:
- - - Equipment
    - Ability Scaling
    - Talent Scaling

Account Progression

When you earn exp, you earn it for both your characters and your account.
Leveling up your account unlocks rarer upgrade materials, unlocks character ascendancy limits and ability level limits.

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