Character Showcase
Role: Combat Designer
Engine: GameMaker
Tools Used: GameMakerLanguage (GML), Steam Workshop, Aseprite, Photoshop, Sublime Text
Team Size: Solo
Responsibilities
❖ Designed and implemented an unique combat move set for a character (AOL Guy) given his history.
❖ Balanced the character by adjusting frame data, hit stun, damage values, and launch power.
❖ Ensured sounds properly represent all actions of the character
❖ Programmed functionality for character movement and character abilities.
❖ Created new art assets for AOL Guys attacks, Character select screen, AOL Guys invitation screen.
Mail Sprite
Mail projectile sprite sheet
Designing and Implementing Combat
I wanted to draw from the source material for the move set, so all of AOL Guy's moves would be comprised of themes revolving around mail, instant messaging, or other nostalgic memories people may have that used AOL. Since Rivals of Aether is a 2D platform fighter this would mean creating sprites for all of this attacks along with movement options.
The general process of designing and implementing combat was to create a sprite sheet for the attack the character would have, which is followed by a hurtbox sprite for the the same attack. This would then be followed with importing the sprites into a helper tool provided from the Rivals of Aether team, which would get values to set the hit box values in code. The hitbox values are then tested along with values for damage, launch angle, knockback, stun, etc. This general process was done for each attack the character had until a full character was playable.
Forward Air Attack
Forward Air Hurt boxes
Hurtbox Sprites in workshop helper for hitboxes indexes
Hitbox added along with the values to set for the hitbox
Balancing Moves
It is important to get design ideas into the game to test as soon as possible. Even the most well thought idea can behave unexpectedly when in game. For attack in particular it is important to test game feel since if the attack feels bad to use how can we expect a player to use it? Getting an idea onto the screen early allows me to react quickly and make proper changes accordingly.
When implementing AOL Guy's neutral special it is a standard projectile. We can see having a projectile that also has some knockback can be quite problematic.
Neutral special Launch back & Damage
While it is obvious that the damage had to be lowered what was not quite obvious was whether the move should have some form of knockback on it. The knockback was lowered to the lowest possible value along with a lower damage rate. The projectile is intended to be a quick project to reflect the concept of instant messaging with AOL and AOL Instant Messaging(AIM), the result is a quick projectile that also has a quick hitstun effect. With this I decided that it was best the projectile just inflicted damage without knockback, which stills allows the move to tie back to AIM.
Neutral Special Minimum Launch back & Damage
The next concern is that the move has quite some reach while being a moving hitbox. This could be problematic, and be a prime spammable move with little risk and unable for opposing players to punish if a player is constantly running away during a game. With this in mind another damage scaling was put on the table to test.
Neutral special Damage 4%
Damage scaling the move down a bit more helps reduce players from spamming the attack and for the player to analyze a situation and either use an attack that has more launch power or raw damage output.
This process was done for each of AOL Guy's attacks until he had a full moveset.
Neutral Special Damage 2%
Burn Down Chart Used
Project Management
For this project I used the Scrum Methodology to keep track of progress to ensure the character would be completed in a timely manner. Self imposed goals along with my daily progress would be tracked on a burn-down chart, which would show the projected end date of the project. With this information I was able to priorities tasks, along with cut or simplify features to reach completion by the goal date.
Burn Down Projected end date
