The Why?
Big action games such as God of War, I feel are lacking in player agency. While the cinematic animations make the player feel powerful, the underlying inputs are shallow and do not leave enough room for player expression. I wanted something that rewarded the player for learning the combo system and gave them a power fantasy which they feel was earned. Furthermore, the project would be my motivation to teach myself more technical aspects of UE5 development. A general improvement of blueprinting, animation blueprints and AI behaviour trees. It would also be the path for me towards technical design, leaning away from level design.
Initial Research & Development
For inspiration, I played some of my favourite action games from the Devil May Cry series and did a playthrough of Bayonetta. Studying the characters movesets and how each move served as a building block for combos. From that I started planning out a moveset for my own character. And built the first blueprints for my combo system, creating a sequenical input system that tracked a corresponding number with an attack and that was later upgraded with enums. From there I also started planning out the level, taking close cues from the second mission in Devil May Cry 5, paying close attention to the pacing of the level and the amount of downtime between combat encounters.
Planned Moveset Tree
Prototyping & Challenges
During the prototyping, there was a lot of finetuning the blueprints and a change of priority when it came to the scale of the project.
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Finding suitable animations, resources on mixamo were too restrained and not exaggerated enough for the action game.
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Using anim notifies to control player states
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Revamping the inputs to include UE5s enhanced inputs
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Hit detection
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AI implementation
Combat Design & Implicit Learning
One of the main things I wanted to avoid in the project was an overeliance on tutorial text boxes. The gameplay loop and the feedback alone should be enough to teach attentive players. As an example:
Jumping
In this game, jumping cancels ground actions, providing an escape from poor positioning and encouraging players to explore air combat, where they can utilize a ground slam as a counterattack.
Parrying
On the ground, the player's parry animation briefly locks them in place, but if timed correctly during this animation, the player can stun enemies, opening them up for combos.
This game intends for the player to play offensively, in this example where an enemy is approaching, the player lacks defensive tools to hold the enemy back. So now their choices become how they can effectively keep the danger at bay while avoiding damage. Jumping and parrying are means for the player to avoid damage but also open up pathways to experiement with air and ground combat, keeping the flow of combat going.
There was contemplation on implementing a dodge roll, a standard mechanic. However, considering its potential clash with the aggressive combat design, I observed the risk of players overly relying on it for safety. Despite initial thoughts of adjusting its effectiveness, I ultimately chose not to include the dodge mechanic to avoid potential player frustration and confusion.