Level Playthrough
Feature Display
Sword Attack & Block
Getting the swing and block to feel good was important.
As well as getting the animations to fluently blend together with one another.
Force Grab & Push
I wanted to design all objects in the level to either feel pushable or not.
In short the player should be able to both grab and push everything small enough to be interactable in the level through pure intuition.
Sword Throw
The player needed a way to be able to interact with enemies and objects from a long distance.
At the same time, they would lose their ability to protect themselves by literally throwing their defenses away.
Developer Tools
Since I wanted the player to intuitively decide which object is interactable and not I created a blueprint for this purpose.
I made it as modular as I needed, with different objects having a different force applied to them depending on their mass, so that a small box and a big table wouldn't feel the same when picking them up and throwing them around.
I also created a simple spline blueprint to have an easier time placing the many fences on the level, which turned out to be really useful in the long run.
Combat Encounters
The focus wasn't placed on the AI. They work by spawning out of the player's vision; moving to a set position and then shooting at the player until they or the player are eliminated.
I did, however, put some thought into the encounters and what I wanted the player to experience at each point in the level.
In this area, I wanted to have the player fully utilize their force grab & push. Since I've chosen to have the objects be intuitive to interact with and the area is filled with barrels, chairs, tables and sandbags. The player will more often than not happily use the combat trick of choice that I intended to be used in the specific area.
Here, I wanted the player to be somewhat surprised but also immediately use the sword throw to get out of trouble.
This, followed by the force push snack kill, made the overall area very enjoyable.
