Melee Mayhem
ROLE
University Project
DESCRIPTION
This is my Final Year Project, given my interest in gameplay design. I decided I would focus on the player and it's feel and flow. This primarily focused on things like screen shake and actor permanence, as well as combat abilities that manipulate the camera.
You can find the game here
Completion
May 2023
GENRE
Third Person 3D Fighting game
Engine
Unreal Engine
Mechanics
Combo System
The Combo System first started as the player being the only damage dealer, this proved to be effective in circumstances when the player was close to the enemies, but being too far from the enemies would prove the player to be useless. I tried to make it so that the player would move the animations in front of the enemy. This proved to be far too difficult to implement in that way, a different form of implementation would be to use an invisible mesh that would mimic the players actions. This later changed to be a physical projection that can be used to visually see what you are targeting, the colour saw an additional change changing from black to blue, to dissuade from any complaints stemming from lack of visibility.
Warping
The Warping itself took a while to properly implement, with the main issue being the lack of visual cues when casting the warp. There was also the issue of not knowing where you would land, to remedy that issue, I used the projections and made it so that the projection will always be seen through objects. I also included some small things that make it better to play, like a smoke effect and laser that points to where the player will land.
Dodging
The dodging was a relatively recent addition, especially the addition of a standing dodge, there aren't many images of the dodging as it stayed the same throughout. It is best to see it as an offshoot of the warping mechanic, as it does the same thing through a different method. It is also based off velocity, it isn't the most notable in idle play, due to one set speed being prevalent in that mode, but battle will see a big difference, especially when sprinting.
Abilities
When creating the combat system, I decided a bit more research was needed to make it feel more like a fighting game and less like a beat-em-up. I decided to research what makes a good fighting game and one thing came up more than others, abilities. I decided to include abilities that helped reduce the weaknesses of the player and speed up the flow of the game, this resulted in the lightning and the laser, both cover the lack of area of effect weakness of the player and utilise a stamina bar that prevents the player from spamming the abilities.
Level Design
The level design itself was based on a lot of feedback from testers, with the main criticism of the first map with it being too simple and needing more complex arenas. To remedy this issue, I created a second map, with three different arenas with the latter 2 changing as you play the game. It was well liked by the testers, but issues were found, such as the player not knowing where to go due to platforms that are out of sight and issues with the dodge moving into objects.