Lightfall

"Lightfall is a third-person action adventure game. Players journey through a world stricken by a phenomena known as the blight and battle corrupted foes."

Developing in UE5.0.3 using Blueprints.

In this project I'm exploring:

Design by subtraction.
- Designing a core experience that is refined and engaging without the need for superfluous, extra content.
A considered action-combat system.
- Combining health, mana and stamina into one bar that requires the player to engage and consider their actions.

Taking influence from Shadow of the Colossus, and cues from soulslike combat, I'm developing Lightfall with the goal of experimenting with, and developing both my combat and aesthetic design abilities. Instead of creating a typical action-adventure or soulslike with a plethora of enemies, I'm instead taking cues from Shadow of the Colossus and implementing only boss fights, to give a more concise and streamlined experience.

Update One - 05/03/23

My initial goal for this project is to create a vertical slice with two enemies as a proof of concept. Starting with a wolf enemy, and then moving onto a human enemy, I'm hoping to give players unique and varied battles.

Players health and stamina/mana are all tied into one stacked bar. Attacks initially cost stamina/mana (the top stat bar), however players may choose to go beyond this and use their current health (the middle bar) if they wish to continue attacking, at the risk of leaving themselves more vulnerable. The player's current health also acts as their stamina/mana's max, meaning upon taking damage or using their health to attack, player's leave themselves with less stamina/mana to recover.

Players are able to recover their current health in two ways; either by parrying enemy attacks, or resting at cleansed crystals found throughout the world.

Upon defeating an enemy, players will be presented with two choices that not only have an impact on the games ending, but the player's combat stats as well. Player's will either choose to cleanse their enemy of the corruption, in turn sacrificing their own maximum health, leading to them having less resources available for their next battle; or they will choose to destroy the corruption and in turn its host, thus maintaining their maximum health. Either choice will also have future implications for the game's ending.

So far this project has been my biggest challenge to date, both in a technical and design sense. I've learned a lot about implementing animations through the use of blendspaces and animation blueprints as a whole, using map variables to determine dynamic slot based montages, and then using those particular montages to drive behaviours within the character and enemy blueprints through animation notifies. This is also my first real deep-dive into using behaviour trees, which I use in tandem with regular blueprints to drive the enemy AI.

In terms of design and technical challenges, getting the feel of the battle mechanics right is difficult, and will simply take time and testing to fine-tune. Amongst this, balancing the mixed health and stamina system will be the hardest system to refine, as so far players have understood the concept of it well, but their experiences have varied dependent on their own desired playstyle. This is intended however, as I want players to consider their approach to combat, and adapt dependent on the circumstances.

What's Next?

My plans going forward include:

Implementing the human enemy.
- The foundations of which are already built.
Implementing player choices after combat.
- Including the effects they have upon the overall experience.