— GAME ENGINE
Unreal Engine 4
— TEAM
Banana Crunch (16 members)
— DEVELOPMENT TIME
9 months (Feb ~ Oct 2020)
Shards of Hope is a 2.5D Metroidvania with a color-based combat system.
The player must choose from a series of different weapons, each with its own different gameplay, while avoiding the enemies' bullet hell attacks to find an opening and strike them down.
As the players defeat enemies, they’ll be able to obtain Skills. Each of the Skills has different uses, so they can customize their own playstyle.
You can dowload the the game from itch.io
I developed this game as I studied U-tad's Game Design Master.
Along with other 4 designers, I took part in the design, documentation and iterative development of the different mechanics and features.
It's important to note that we only worked physically on this project for 2 months.
Due to the COVID-19 we worked remotely for 7 months, which gave us a whole new challenge to face.
Main Tasks
Combat Design and Implementation
Worked on the design, implementation and iteration of the combat system
Special Skills' Development
- Design and implementation of each of the 6 different Skills the player can use
(3 min read)
Final Boss Encounter Design
- Everything related to the Final Boss encounter: behaviour, attacks, balancing…
(4 min read)
Animation BP Implementation
Implementation of the different animations using UE4's Animation Blueprint systems
Major Challenges
While working on Shards of Hope we encountered many obstacles.
However, we managed to find solutions that greatly helped me grow.
- - Remote work: Never having worked remotely, and much less on a big project, we ended up having
- many communication issues.
- With the help of group dynamics we managed to reduce the physical gap and work as a true team.
- We scheduled meetings in Discord, where everyone could share their ideas, worries and freely talk.
- - Combat Design: I found the combat design to be extremely challenging. We set two central design pillars: ‘game as a canvas’ and ‘easy to play, hard to master’. We had to never lose track of them while creating an engaging gameplay.
- We managed to create a rewarding and fun experience after iterating again and again.
What I learnt
Rapid prototyping
When designing any mechanic or system, it’s not enough to just write some documentation.
You have to convince your team that the ideas work.
And the best way to prove something when making a game is with gameplay.
And the best way to prove something when making a game is with gameplay.
Finding out which designs were fitting for the game and which ones only worked on paper by making quick prototypes greatly helped me during development.
Group dynamics
Many of the communication problems we had during
development weren't easy to deal with.
Knowing how to treat every person on a group can be a tough task.
Learning the importance of making sure everyone feels listened to and part of the team are the results of some of the mistakes we made along the way.
Although we went through some hardships I'm really glad I improved such an essential skill.
Awards
- It’s Nice That
- AIGA
- Fonts In Use
- The Dieline
Contact
email@domain.com
000-000-000
Award Nominations
VII Playstation Talents Awards
- - Best Game for the Press Nominee
- - Game of the Year Nominee
Fun & Serious Game Festival 2020
- - Best Talents Award Nominee
Contact
email@domain.com
000-000-000
Screenshots
