Inferno

Project Overview

Third person movement shooter with a focus on speed running created in a team environment, my responsibly on the project was to design the main player character's 3Cs along with managing the team responsible for its delivery.

Resonsibilities

- Main character 3Cs.

- Main character movement abilities.

- Game UI/UX.

- Leading a 6 person team to deliver work items according to deadlines.

Main character 3Cs

The character’s core design goal was to create a fast and fluid-moving character which blends combat and traversal, allowing players to express their skill.

Please see the video to the right for the final result of the player character.

Development process

To get to this result, I made many iterations, but first I defined the states the character could have along with their actions, and with how they would enter/exit said states.

This was done to solidify and align the design with the rest of the team, along with setting expectations for how the character could traverse the play space.

I also wrote feature specifications for them and verified these with my team before handing them off to our programmers. To make sure we alligned on our intent before work being started.

After mapping out all the player states, created basic sketches for the character movement, along with a list of required variables needed for it to function.

Furthermore, I also made a required audio and animation list, the latter also including a flowchart showing how the animation states are to be set during gameplay.

This was all done to determine the scope and prevent development bottlenecks.

I communicated with my team to ensure we were all aligned on the scope of the character before setting concrete development goals and milestones.

Movement Abilities

In order to blend combat and traversal, I created two movement abilities: dash & double jump.

These abilities were based on a singular charge consumed when either ability was used preventing ability use till it was restored, and restoration was done when the player killed an enemy or walked on any walkable surface for a fraction of a second.

Please see the video to the right for a showcase.

These ablities were picked due to they supported the player experience of speed running and going fast, with various iterations being made with variants of the abilities and their effects.

Game UI/UX

I designed the UI present in the game, creating the player HUD and the menus around the game. Along with some other elements.

Please see the video to the right for the final result showcasing a sample of the menus.

Development process

To get to this final result iterated many times throughout the project, most iterations were to improve the player experience with the UI.

But others were due to evolving conditions within the team for example due to scrapped features or cut content, leading to menu’s being moved or scraped.

From the start I utilized references from other titles which utilized the menu style I was creating, I used these as a guideline and inspiration to ensure a good navigation experience while also assisting our teams the artists giving them a more clear vision of what is expected for the finished product.

During this process I also became responsible for the player’s HUD due to the fast paced nature of our game I designed the Hud to be unintrusive with minimal elements as to not distract the player.

This led to the creation of a responsive Hud with most information build into the player character itself and health and damage being displayed along the edges of the screen, with only the timer being the lone element placed near the top of the screen.