In a presentation from Rich, he gave a couple ideas of extra level of detail and effects we could include in our games.
+ Add an all slate/cast to make the screen black between level end/starts (This makes the transition between levels look smoother as levels unloading and setting up is done without the player seeing).
+ A vignette was suggested which simulates the darkening in real-world camera lenses which shouldn’t be impactful as I plan to have plenty of lighting. A number of suggestions for why this is good in games were given here, such as vignetting during cutscenes to tell when player control is taken away, or “leading eye towards the centre of the screen”. I think it’s worth being added but very light and subtly in my game as I don’t want obstruct the vision too much by covering up the screen or making elements too dark as I want enemies to be visible.
+ A little screen shake would give spells when they are cast some extra visual power, this could scale with how much damage they deal, but I want this effect to be very very minor for an interaction the player will experience every second or. I think too much screen shake will give the player motion sickness or make the game too jarring to play.
+ Screen shake when damage is taken + Chromatic Aberration unfocuses all colours and splits RGB values, looks great for that split second as that splitting of RGB values makes this shake stand out from when the player casts spells..
?Bloom came up as something to intensify when the player is hurt aswell but it can be a little more resource demanding and might be diminishing returns. I’ll see how chromatic aberration works for damage and if it isn’t enough then I can try bloom then too.
Another important bit is hud being divided into screen zones, it’s better to have information divided into groups on the screen at certain zones to help with the player’s focus between the gameplay and the HUD. Information is most popularly provided in corners as to be the least obstructive, sometimes most critical information like health is placed in the centre such as in Halo, Titanfall or League of Legends.
These are lower-priority elements of the game so I won’t work through these just yet but just so I don’t forget about them I’ve added them to a checklist in my trello project page.
Next, I ideally want to focus on improving the combat elements in my game.
For the player’s attacks, I need to put some more work into the magic attacks. There’s nothing separating them apart other than their colour, mana cost and damage output. I think this would look better with different mechanics between spells. Fireball could be larger and deal damage overtime (burn), corrosive could leave a puddle that damages any enemies inside of it, freeze could slow down enemies that it passes though, lightning chains between actors.
In my initial GDD, I’ve listed skeletons, slimes, zombies, mages as potential enemies each with a different style of combat fitting with their theme. I want to work on having enemies that will damage the player on-attack rather than on collision.
I like the idea of having slimes as a chaser style enemy similar to what I have so far, maybe could move slowly and sort of drag, when they die they could ‘split’ into smaller slimes and move faster.
I’m like the idea of an attack where they try to sort of throw themselves at the player in order to attack, or maybe stick to the player, slow and damage overtime – this is a bit overly hopeful but it’s a nice idea if I have more time.
Skeletons and zombies both sounds like chaser style enemies but I want them to swing at the player in order to cause damage, work a little like bokogoblin from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Zombies just walk up to the player and quickly swing and skeletons swing with a sword.
I like the idea of having mages too who fire their own spells, maybe just weak ones that
These are a couple ideas moving forward however I have currently reached all goals in the MVP, and I need to focus on the other briefs for this unit.
On April 26th, a room has been booked for students to set up their games to be playtested which I plan on doing for feedback.