Lorenzo Arteaga
Game Designer
NIGHTS AT THE EVERFREE'S
Game Designer & Programmer
Duration:
3 Month
Role:
Game Designer & Programmer
Tools:
Unreal Engine 5
Github
Photoshop
Miro
Overview:
"Nights at the Everfree's" is a 3rd Person Shooter speedrunning game with parkour mechanics in which you use a bow to fight outworldly demons. You can combine your parkour skills with your combat abilities to get higher scores.
Team Size:
3
My Goals
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Create a smooth and fluid combat experience
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Hectic and creative moveset for parkour mechanics
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Engaging, manageable and simple enemy encounters
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Make the player feel agile
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Balance speed and precision
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Encourage player creativity
Role & Ownerships
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Designing and implementing the demo using entirely Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints.​
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Creating overall combat standards.
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Designing and implementing the player character.
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Designing and implementing the initial combat system from scratch using Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints.
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Programming and designing all enemy AI, including attack patterns and movement behaviors.
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Designing and implementing the player character.
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Programming UI and HUD elements.
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Designing and implementing camera systems.
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Designing and implementing Animation blueprints.
Design Breakdown
MECHANICS
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Shooting arrows: The player can hold and release the attack button to shoot an arrow projectile towards the screen reticle. When hit, enemies die and the player scores points depending on the body part. Headshots give a higher amount of points and due to the hectic nature of the movement enemies have a wider hit box.
Jump & Double Jump: Players can open a window for maneuvering in the air by using a second jump while airborne.
Slide: When players are running on the ground, they have the ability to perform a sliding maneuver, which allows them to maintain their forward momentum and potentially increase their speed.
Wall-run: Players can execute a wall run by running towards a vertical surface and pressing the designated button. During a wall run, the character will temporarily adhere to the surface, allowing them to traverse horizontally along it. This mechanic provides players with an additional method for navigating environments and accessing otherwise unreachable areas.
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Wall-jump: By pressing the jump button, players can jump off a wall, keeping their speed.
Multiplier gauge: When players engage with movement mechanics, they accumulate points to fill a multiplier gauge. If players just run on the ground, the gauge depletes. However, engaging in actions such as jumping, wall-running, or sliding causes the gauge to ascend. Once the gauge reaches capacity, players enhance their multiplier, enabling them to unleash an explosive arrow for each subsequent multiplier attained. This multiplier is then factored into the points earned for the player's final score.
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This mechanic encourages players to engage with the game's mechanics "the fun way", emphasizing running around and maneuvering in the air as the most efficient tactic.
Explosive Arrow: This projectile can only be unlocked after filling the Multiplier Gauge. Upon impact with enemies, it detonates, inflicting damage and launching everything within its radius into the air.
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Players are immune to this damage.
This mechanic serves as a reward for effectively engaging with the game's mechanics, providing players with an area-of-effect (AOE) damage source and a more potent movement option. It broadens the tactical possibilities for gameplay as players navigate through the levels.
LAUNCH ENEMIES
SELF-LAUNCH
Slide shot // Air shot: Every action in movement has a response in combat, players are able to aim and shoot during any movement state, keeping their momentum intact and allowing them to safely engage with every game mechanic.
ENEMY & AI DESIGN
Manageable and immersive crowds: As enemies are meant to be demons I wanted them to represent that feeling of being overwhelmed by something terrifying while giving players window to breathe.
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Enemies will be taking turns to attack the player while strafing around. Individually, they may pose little threat, but when encountered in groups, players may find themselves facing a formidable challenge.
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All enemies have sound cues that help player's react to their intents correctly.
Different adversities: ​Foes appear in different forms with individual challenges. Enemies can perform ranged and melee attacks that can be interrupted if they get killed, for clarity on ranged attacks enemies will be very obvious showing their intent even when the camera isn't framing them.
This attack aims towards player position in a very wide range to keep player's at bay and encourage them to keep engaging with movement while improving their combat skills.
THOUGHTS & DESIGN CHALLENGES
Balancing Speed and Precision: Maintaining a fast-paced, frenetic movement while ensuring combat remains precise posed a significant challenge. Players need to feel the rush of fluid movement without sacrificing accuracy in combat encounters. Striking the right balance between speed and precision will be crucial for delivering a satisfying gameplay experience.
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For that, I made tweaks and changes such as widening overall enemy hit-boxes, especially for headshots, to compensate for players' lack of accuracy. I added weight to speedrun levels by including them in the final score recount, while still emphasizing enemies as the main source of point collection. Additionally, I allowed players to "break the rules" a bit by rewarding them with greater power, such as explosive arrows, in exchange for constantly engaging with the game's mechanics.s.
Refining player movement and combat: I wanted players to be able to engage with combat in any movement state, for that I had to extensively iterate on the animation graph to ensure fluidity and responsiveness from animation transition. I also worked within the character blueprint to get the bow mechanics feeling just right for snappy and engaging bow combat.
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To do so I:
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Correctly integrated both the bow and character animation blueprints to ensure smooth animation transitions.
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Implemented different cameras for aiming states to ensure players had enough view space to maneuver without losing important information, such as enemies or the environment.
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Implemented a dynamic reticle that informs the player about their intentions and whether they can be fulfilled or not.
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Implemented visual and sound effects for clearer information.
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Implemented and tweaked bow and projectile properties for snappy and tight responsiveness.
Balancing Speedrun: My biggest challenge was to incentivize players to engage both in movement and combat to achieve optimal results in their final level score.
To accomplish this, I needed to teach players the order of priorities when playing the game.
While the game encourages hectic movement and rewards it at the end of the level, it's just one part of the experience. Since players tend to gravitate towards the most optimal way of playing, I aimed to make the optimal way also the most enjoyable. I achieved this by leveraging the replayability nature of speedrunning games and introducing various score analyses. Some analyses prioritize killing enemies, while others reward players who strike a balance between hectic movement and excellent combat skills with higher scores.
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It works as follows:
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Time: Takes into account how long did it take the player to finish the level.
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Maneuvering: A mix of points you get from killing enemies, depending on how you killed it (airborne, sliding, explosive arrow...) it will get bonuses.
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Death Counter: Take into account how many times the player died in the level.
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Kills: Counts how many enemies the player killed.
