My Prototype Adventure
Engine: Unity | Team Size: One | Duration: 6 weeks
Throughout July and August of 2019, I was given a task to get into a design and production track for my master’s degree at Full Sail University. This task included prototyping a top-down adventure style game based off the game of our choosing. I chose the game Hyper Light Drifter, which I proceeded to play through and break down different combat scenarios scene throughout the game. Throughout testing, I prototyped several different weapons to see how they could be used in action and puzzle scenarios, as well as different enemy types and level mechanics.
Gather Reference
The best way for me to start off with a project is to write a list of things I want to prototype and gather references for that list. For example, I was playing through Celeste and found the push spike mechanic they used in the celestial resort. This mechanic felt like it could work in my project, so I decided to create a rough version to see how it would work within the space. I looked into Hyper Light Drifter for combat and how they used different level mechanics and enemy types.
Combat Design
The combat design started off as a strategic battle against multiple enemy types and was centered around attacking and evading. This was inspired by Hyper Light Drifter’s combat arenas. The player had a sword for their primary attack and a pistol for longer range attacks.
The different enemy types included shooting, close sword fighting, and a kamikaze that blows up when near the player. These different enemies created a diverse set that the player would need to learn and strategize around how to defeat them. In the end, the shooting and sword fighting enemies were kept, but the kamikaze enemy was removed due to the ability to overwhelm the player too quickly with the newly designed spike block mechanic placed within the combat arenas.
The player can utilize three different guns within the game, the pistol, shotgun, and ice gun. The pistol is the default and has the longest range. The shotgun has a shorter range but shoots 3 bullets in different directions. The ice gun was originally going to be a gun utilized for solving puzzles but was transformed into a gun that would hurt and slow enemies, allowing the player to run up and kill them.
Throughout the different iterations, I added the shotgun and ice gun to the different weapons the player could user against enemies. The combat scenarios were originally going to be in rooms with only enemies, but was adjusted to include spike blocks as another encounter the player must be aware of.
Level Design
Gates and valves were used in each room to keep the player contained and force them into combat. I took reference areas from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Hyper Light Drifter to study how their combat arenas functioned, which gave me the idea to use gates and valves to control the flow and pace of combat.
The level design originally started off with the idea of having combat arenas and puzzles the player must solve. The combat system played a big part in completing puzzles where the player had to shoot targets to unlock an area. This aspect was too easy to complete so in the next iterations I added keys that the player had to collect.
The key system was used as a mini goal for the player, but I felt that this did not make the game puzzles fun. I set the spike blocks, as seen in red, in different patterns and added enemies into a couple rooms. I noticed that the rooms with enemies and spike blocks created interesting combat scenarios. This led me to solve a design problem that I was faced with.
These scenarios were used as the base of the next level I created. These rooms had multiple enemy types the player had to fight, along with rooms with and without spike blocks. This helps to break up the pacing for the player, so they are not too overwhelmed.
Thank you for making it this far!