Monsters Overworld is a round-based survival game where the player can encounter various monsters and creatures, with their goal being to stay alive and fend them off using primal melee and ranged weapons.
Throughout gameplay, the player can explore the world to find resources to upgrade their gear to take on stronger monsters, as well as aiding themselves in battle.
Throughout gameplay, the player can explore the world to find resources to upgrade their gear to take on stronger monsters, as well as aiding themselves in battle.
This game was designed and modelled by EssDoubleUu and we teamed up to use this as our Final Major Project for the last year of University to which I am very thankful for having the chance to work on a widescale project and apply my own skills. Additionally, we had the amazing opportunity to have Games Designers from Mediatonic playtest our years games during development. I took on the role as the engineer as my partner for this was more knowledgeable in 3D work.
Project consisted of three 2-week sprints, the first sprint was focusing on the player character
Used Unity's Third Person Character to learn more about how how they are structured and functional
Examined RPG style fighting games to build a combat system off of the Third Person Character
Based around Player States: Idle allows the player to traverse land faster with their weapon stored in its sheath
Player can draw their weapon to entire Combat State to slash and slice with their weapon.
Attacking State when the player attacks, stopping any inputs until attack was over.
Falling State when the player is falling to not attack mid-air
Player can draw their weapon to entire Combat State to slash and slice with their weapon.
Attacking State when the player attacks, stopping any inputs until attack was over.
Falling State when the player is falling to not attack mid-air
Unfortunately, this style of play wasn't very favourable with the majority of the play testers and the Mediatonic Game Designers (MGD).
Their main concern was the moveability with the style of the game. As the designer intended Monsters: Overworld to be a stylized fantasy style game, the character didn't feel smooth enough to go with that. It was too slow. On top of this, it also affected to combat system as it felt too basic with no variety or real weight to anything you were doing. However, as for the concept and direction we wanted to take this game they was all for it, so we carried on.
Response to feedback in second sprint and more game components
Researched various fighting games to learn "What makes a good combat system"
Player was remade to be physics based using Rigidbodies, making smoother movement and impactful button presses
Combat System remade to work with new player. Less deliberate and more free-flowing combo attacks with little anticipation and faster impact.
Grapple hook was adding as a method of defence and a "flight or fight" response to threats.
Work on the UI had started, originally had a crosshair but was swapped to dynamic for play visibility
Players enjoyed using the grapple hook a lot as well as getting swarms of Skeletons and combo attacking them with the new animations
Grass shader to compliment EssDoubleUu's stunning 3D work and world building. Consisted of using Shader Graph and Vertex Painting
Modular Animation controller to add, swap, and delete attack animations and have more control over combat system
Game loop elevated by adding round system and spawner based on the player location in the world
New enemy, Big Skelly, to add variety to the monsters as well as add some difficulty
Various bug fixes such as camera jitter, grapple and hook conflict and frame dependant events
Player HUD revised for simplicity and more professional appearance
UI and cinematic menu screen for player navigation
Mediatonic returned during the last week of this project to provide some feedback, as well as our peers. Everyone was astonished of how good the game looked and how much effort has been put into making it right. Compared to the first sprint, the amount of time I had taken into making a suitable player character and responding to feedback to improve it was excellent and was very proud of what we had produced. The main negative feedback was the features we had not had time to implement, such as upgrading the players gear and multiple monsters. These were things that they were excited to see but due to time restraint they didn't make it to the final cut.