Metroidvania Game Jam

Today we discussed the theme of the current Game Jam: 

You Are The Monster

Location: Based on African culture in a fantasy setting.

Settings: Temple/Ruin.

What are we doing

We are being guided through this temple by a guiding spirit, represented by a statue of a giant head. He gives the player abilities for progressing and killing enemies' African masks. It is revealed later on in the game the spirit giving us powers is imprisoned here and is evil and has been working through us. In the last section, we release we have to redeem ourselves and destroy the guiding spirits using the enemies as allies.

Enemies are little goblin-ish guys that wear African-styled masks.

Killing goblin guys will heal you; standing still for 2-3 mins IRL while they investigate you reveals that they'd hurt you a little before healing you anyway, just slower

Secret Pacifist route?

(Potentially) Weapons could change as you kill Goblin guys, indicating how Evil/Heroic you are

We think we are a force for good but it turns out the protagonist is the villain and the enemies are running from you or trying to protect something from you.

At the start, enemies are running from us but as we progress through the level they are forced to fight us to protect themselves or protect the goals from us.

Progress through the level could be shown as the fear of the enemies.

The player increases in rage as we get further through the game.

Rage mode boss fights. Power up the player as they get rageful.

The first boss is a backtracking chase scene.

Bad Ending VS Good Ending; Bad = If you kill Goblin dudes, they don't show up in phase 1 of the End Boss, so there is no healing throughout both phases and you have to restart the battle from phase one on death. Good Ending = If you haven't killed any Goblin dudes, they assist in phase 1 of the End Boss, providing healing orbs when they die or stunning the Boss if you throw a mask at them before he kicks them. Normally, if he kicks them, they just insta-die; this mask-throwing start allows them to stun him to give you some free hits on the Boss without having to dodge his attacks for 5 sec

I.E. The game punishes you in the End Boss by way of no healing and a lack of a save point at the start of phase 2 if you killed any Goblin dudes. Otherwise, you could get healing in Phase 1 and have a checkpoint at the start of phase 2 if you hadn't killed any Goblins dudes and just let them heal you via the secret healing mechanic.

Brainstorm group Idea - (Credit to Tim, Jordan, Josh, Seth, and Moin)

Week 1 Task

Seth: Character concept

Moin: Melee weapon and environment research and mood boards

Joshua: General level design over

Tim: Level design mechanics and scenarios

Jordan: Character movement and simple enemies

The Main Character

Seth designed the main character's Concept

Me, Jordan and Tim analyzed Seth's character strenght and weakness and we agreed that the second option is the most suitable for the game, and it is the one that is the easiest to animate (we have limited time and resources) and the character looks the most "barbaric"

Main character equipment and abilities:

Movement:

• Double Jump
• Extra height on a jump; ungraceful landing leaves the Player open for a few seconds.

Torch:

• Illuminates small area
• Needs to be re-light from fire sources
• Swipe Attack

Sword

• Slash, Stab & Heavy attack
• Combo Attack

Makeshift Weapon

• Swipe & Hit Attack
• Can break weak walls and other environments assets

Bow

• Ranged Attack
• Require Projectile
• Different types of arrows

Rope Arrows

• Shots have ropes attached to a clawed arrow.
• Can be used to pull enemies closer and pull flying enemies out of the sky.

Reinforced Sandals 

• Sandals allow for crushing certain enemies as well as the ability to kick some as projectiles.
• Sandals allow for walking on certain hazards.

Enemies Variaety

There are a few enemies in this games

Design of the Mask

The main Character will wear a mask, and the enemies will have masks

I want the main character to rapresent a strong spirit, something that is free and strong. an animal a beast ready to destroy and kill anyone who oppose him. The mask i choose is the Lion

I created a design of the mask for the character

I started Working On the Mask Model

Main Character 3D Models

Jordan made some quick parts for the main character and asked me to texture them for the project.

I made a few version of the textures, these are the final version for the models:

Shoulders Start

Shoulders End

Belt Skirt

Weapons

The Sword - Khopesh 

The game is set in a fictional setting, with this premise the group gave me freedom of choice for the weapons of the character, I took particular interest in the Khopesh an Egyptian sickle-shaped sword that evolved from battle axes.

There are various Versions of this blade scattered across the entire African continent.

My main goal is to establish a sense of progression for this weapon through visuals, I have in mind that the weapon evolves as the player defeats enemies, getting corrupted and evil.

I want the player character to start with a base version of the Khopesh that slowly evolves into a dark and more gory corrupted blade.

Key Elements of the weapon - Still an Idea

• One Handed
• Fast Swings
• 3-Hit combo attack
• Lightweight (freedom of movement)
• Can destroy small objects
• The swords can be upgraded individually with Runes (stats changes)
• Can be charged for a more powerful attack
• Can be dual-wielded (find another version of it)
• Dual-wielding combos are slower but increase damage

Additional gameplay elements

• Life steal increased depending on enemies killed
• Animations have a dark aura around the weapon
• Runes/Symbols on the weapon glow when fully charged
• The player can change stance from one-handed to dual-wielding
• Weapon runes glow a different color depending on the effect (fire/poison/life steal)

Weapon Runes

The player can find and equip runes in the sword, these give additional buff for the swords. Each sword can only have one rune active.

• Fire - orange rune - can set enemies on fire
• Poison - green rune - on-hit builds up poison on enemies
• Life Steal - dark red rune - grants life steal on-hit damage

Design of the Blade

I drew a simple sketch for my Khopesh sword, I have 3 variations of the blade.

My team wants me to create a sword that represents the "monstrous side" of the main character. My idea is to make a weapon that evolves during the gameplay, the more enemies the player character kills the more the weapon mutate and gets stronger.

Creating The Balde

I started working on a simple version of the Khopesh as the base model. I needed to make one model so that my team can use it in the game.

I went into Maya and started creating the shape of the first blade

Then I created the High Poly version of it and baked both models in substance. Made some textures and the Model is ready to be playtested.

I then exported all the files in a onedrive folder and sahred it with my team so they can test my model in game.

The Level Design

Josh was designing the level section and he drawed some guidelines.

Josh drew the first area of the gameplay

Jordan was working on the Animations and Blueprints for the game, he set the game on sidescrolling and rigged the character using mixamo animation, sadly we coudn't use animations from other packs as that would take too much time.

Jordan also imported my sword in the game so that we can see it in action.

Test 1

Test 2

Thankfully i'm not the one doing the bluepritns...

The World

Our Game is set in a fictional African environment, I had a look at various old temples, ruins, and ancient villages for some inspiration for the environment assets.

The temples are big and the player can enter and eplore them.

I really like the wall with simbols and the statues infront of the entrence, like an old civilization was there before and now it is just a ruin.

Design Ouside

The ancient African culture was exponentially exposed to Egyptian architecture. I want to implement them in my word building and some of the environmental structures.

For the Feeling of the world, i was thinking of setting the temples in a jungle or some forgotten land were the strongest survive.

Feeling Inside 

Game Play Updates