TASTY TORMENT
GAME DESIGNER, TECHNICAL DESIGNER
AN ACTION BASED TWIN-STICK SHOOTER where you can cook up demons! Try and survive for as long as you can and gain a high score while you keep your combo going!
Description
Project Info
DELIVERABLE: Twin-Stick Shooter
TEAM SIZE: Solo
ENGINE: Unreal Engine 5
TIME PERIOD: 8 weeks
INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION
Designed and implemented core gameplay loop, mixing twin-stick combat with cooking.
Designed and implemented 3 unique enemy types, each requiring a different approach when using your weapon.
Designed and implemented cooking mechanic with design pillars of being on edge and always active.
Designed and implemented reward systems, including 2 unique buffs.
Designed and implemented UI/UX & art assets.
Design decisions iterated on through playtesting.
DESIGNING CORE GAME LOOP
Goal
This is project was made as an assignment for Buas. For this, we had to make an action based twin stick shooter game with 1 unique weapon, enemy and game mode. My main goal for this assignment was to get more comfortable with Unreal engine and gain more knowledge about different methods and improving my technical skills overall.
Concepting
A lot of changes were made during and after concepting the game.
The first concept was about a robot chef in hell, where he fights off waves of demons using his cleaver (which has both a melee and a ranged attack.) Then every start of a new round, the player can pick out of 3 random “deals of the devil” with stackable items that can make the player stronger, while making the rounds harder at the same time.
This concept was a bit all over the place. The different mechanics felt more like new rules added on top. They didn’t feel connected at all.
So, I made some changes based on the feedback I’ve gotten. I wanted to keep the style of having a robot chef in hell. And so, I started concepting around that and make mechanics based on the theme. After that, I came to this concept, where the player can slice and dice demons in hell in order to cook them in the pot. This feels a lot more connected and expands upon the “chef in hell” theme in a technical way rather than just aesthetically.
Post Mortem
After the development of the project, we had a “Playday.” This is where all of us gather and play each other’s games, as well as others outside of our study. It went really well, people loved playing my game. There were also a few that kept coming back and try to beat the high score of others.
I’ve also posted this project on LinkedIn. (Which was also my first post) And I got some great connections. A lot of people also wondered if I would continue expanding upon this game. And I was considering that. But I already had another personal project I was working on at the time, so I haven’t worked on this game further for now. I am thinking of coming back to this and making it from scratch with the knowledge I have gained in between from when I made this game to now.
First concept with random stackable items.
3 Unique Enemies
These are the main enemies of the game.
Ranged: Shoots projectiles from a certain distance.
Exploding: Starts exploding when in range of the Player with a slight delay. Explodes instantly when attacked. Also kills any other nearby enemies.
Blocker: Deflects Player’s ranged attack. Can only take damage from melee attacks or explosions.
The different enemies helped quite a bit when it comes to the combat mechanic and having 2 different attacks. (Ranged & Melee)
Before, there wasn’t really a reason to use any of the attacks other than preference. So, after some playtesting and feedback that I have gotten regarding that, I designed the “blocker” enemy. This way, the player has to adept within combat when facing these different enemies. With one combat “style” being better than the other for certain situations.
Cooking mechanic
This is the USP of the game.
During concepting, I was stuck in this bottom-up approach. Thinking of mechanics first. This made the first concept feel all over the place. None of the mechanics really felt like they connected with each other. It felt like some random ideas that were thrown at the wall and seeing what sticks. So, I decided to try something different, and started concepting using a top-down approach instead. This made it quite a bit easier when concepting something that felt more unique and more connected.
And out came this “cooking mechanic.” The main goal is to keep throwing corpses into the pot, and every 5th corpse will fully heal the player.
This enhanced the experience of “being on edge” drastically. This was the main pillar I took into account when designing the mechanics and core loop of the game. This also increases the difficulty of the game. Spawning new enemies and increasing the spawn rate slightly.
Changes made for gaining “Abilities“
Before, you gain the ability while holding on to a corpse.
After, you gain the ability when putting it in the pot.
The game is all about getting a high score and putting as many corpses into the pot. And getting an ability while holding onto a corpse, stops the player from making any progression. This also gives a bit of strategy for the player. Making them think of when to put certain corpses into the pot.
Old mechanic that focused on enhancing the “Always Active“ experience
Shoots projectiles
Rewarding System
Aside from just getting points by throwing corpses into the pot, some enemies drop unique corpses. These are from the “blocking” & “exploding” enemies. When the player throws one of these into the pot, they will receive the corresponding buff. (Seen on the images on the right)
Before this, player’s used to gain these buff by merely holding onto the corpse. As also shown from playtesting however, it quickly negates the progression of the game. Since the main goal is to get as many points as you can. Because of that, most players would not even use any of the buffs at all, since they want to get the points and throw the corpse into the pot.
Now with this change, players have developed somewhat of a strategy. Leaving some “unique“ corpses on the ground for later when they need it most.
Explodes in range
Deflects ranged attacks
Slowed but take less damage
Fast but slowly take burn damage
Changes made for Combat
Before, there wasn’t really a reason to use the melee attack. It was stronger than the ranged attack, but players would prefer the ranged attack as it’s a safer option.
So, I made a new unique enemy that block any ranged attacks and only takes damage to melee attacks. This makes it so that the player will have to switch it up every now and then. Exploding enemies are also better handled with ranged attacks.
There’s now also the “dicing” mechanic, where the player first has to prepare the corpses with their melee attack before they can pick it up.