Research

Character Inspirations

Enemy: Halion & Antgel

Kedamono
- Mask

LSD Dream Emulator
- Symmetry

Neon Green
- Halo

Object Inspirations

Vending Machine

Neon White

Shipwrecked 64

Links to Tutorials

Quake Movement Tutorial Grappling Hook Tutorial Stair Stepping Tutorial Texture Atlas Tutorial Pause Menu Tutorial Signals Tutorial In-World Health Bar Tutorial Best Time Tracker

Game Analysis

As of writing this I am 6 weeks into the project, since I'm about half way through, and I'm starting to sort of struggle to gain footing of how I want the game to go, I've decided that I want to do some analysis on 3 different games which are currently inspiring the project, especially since I've had such a large pivot in my idea for my game, I feel like writing this up will help get more ideas as well as explain better as to how these games inspire me.

ULTRAKILL

The first game I'll be talking about is UTLRAKILL (2020)¹⁴, Developed by Arsi 'Hakita' Patala, is a boomer shooter game set in Hell based on Inferno (Dante Alighieri) (c. 1321)¹. The game takes a very strong focus on going fast, and killing enemies with style, this is achieved through the games incredible movement system and the innovative yet familiar style system. The game's movement system generally stays the same from the beginning of the game, starting with the player being able to walk around, dash, slide, and jump off walls, although later in the game you are given a grappling hook which further improves mobility. All of these together create a perfect system which is easy to learn yet very hard to master. The style system is very reminiscent of another game Devil May Cry 5 (2019)¹², which uses different style ranks to show how well the player is doing during combats, there are different ways to improve your style whilst playing the game, such as using different weapons, using weapons in combination with each other, etc. While all of this creates a game which is extremely enjoyable for the player, the best part is the replayability of the game. Whenever completing a level it shows your stats, which includes how long it took you to beat the level, the amount of enemies you killed, and your style, all of this gets added up to give you a final rank, with the highest achievable score being a P Rank, alongside this there are leaderboards which shows how fast players were able to beat the level in both any rank and P rank, which helps create a strong competitive scene for the fanbase of the game, generating even more replayability in the game and allows the fanbase of the game to grow even faster than it may have. This links to the debate of Ludology vs Narratology, which is the argument of whether a games lore and story is more important than the games mechanics, despite a lot of evidence leaning towards the former, the story and lore of the game is very involved too, having an incredibly detailed story, which is albeit at the time incomplete, which leaves room for the fanbase to further theorise who may show up in the game next, or what could happen at the end of the game, this helps keep the fanbase alive, and shows how theories play a key role in fanculture. I personally believe that both sides of the argument are valid, as both parts help complete the game and give different sides to the fanbase. This links back to what I want in my game, I'd like to create a leaderboard which has the fastest times for each level to hopefully encourage players to replay through the game, this may help with the amount of time people spend playing the game as I don't plan to have tons of levels after creating the demo of the game, this will hopefully especially increase replayability during the open day where the game will be shown off, I hope to create a competitive environment, which encourages players to interact and get better times! This is similar to my previous game I created earlier this year called Welshware, in which I added a high score on the main menu of the game. I definitely think there's a lot of things that I could have done better with that game but it taught me a lot about game design and Godot in general. I think the biggest problem with that game was that there were game breaking bugs, which definitely caused people to feel confused and annoyed, so I'd like to make sure I focus on removing any game breaking bugs before the open day. Back on the topic of ULTRAKILL, the game slowly introduces guns throughout the levels, starting off with the basic pistol, then the shotgun… etc etc. I'd like to do something like this but with 2 weapons, and a movement mechanic, I feel as if those should be enough to make the game feel fresh and exciting even if I only add around 5 levels at most.

Neon White

The second game I will be talking about is Neon White, it's the game I'm most familiar with and have spent the most time playing. Developed by Angel Matrix and set in Heaven. The game's concept is mainly based around the idea of speedrunning, trying to get to the goal as fast as possible, to encourage this the game gives the players medals based on how fast they beat the levels, scaling from a bronze medal, all the way to a diamond ace medal, and even a red ace medal which are times based on the developers best times. This mechanic is so crucial to the game as it allows players to be much more competitive than they may have been previously, furthermore these medals and times are uploaded to leaderboards, meaning that players can see how well they did compared to the rest of the playerbase. The game's main mechanic are it's soul cards, which are cards that act as guns, such as Pistols or Snipers, but they have unique effects when discarded, such as a double jump or a dash, these can be used anywhere in the levels which creates a unique environemnt where every player will play slightly differently, you get to choose when you discard the cards meaning that you can play the levels however you want, finding the fastest path possible. The style of the game actually helps follow the speedrunning part of the game, as everything in the game has a sleek design, making it easy to tell what things are, a majority of the levels having white platforms with enemies being green, blue, or black, to help them stick out compared to the rest of the level, the same applies to the soul cards too, they have very vibrant designs making them easy to see. In my own game I've decided to give the enemies very vibrant colors to make them easy to see and differentiate from the environment, furthermore the buttons and doors are also very vibrant, making it easy to tell when there's going to be a puzzle in the room, hopefully giving players less time to think, additionally I'm going to be adding leaderboards to my game to hopefully inspire a competitive environment during the open day. Neon White also uses vibrant foliage to help guide the player, such as using hanging leaves on the edges of where the player is meant to go, or trees around the area that the player should be. The games replayability is enhanced drastically by the inclusion of leaderboards, they give players a goal to strive for, and due to a majority of the levels in the game being incredibly short it means that it's easy to quickly restart levels, making replaying them something that just essentially becomes subconcious.

Primary Research

My primary researched helped quite a lot with picking what mechanics to add to the game, the first question asks possibly the most important question of most shooter games, should it be first or third person, it turns out based on votes that everyone but 1 person wanted the game to be in first person So I decided to make it first person. This helps a lot with my current skillset as I'm a lot better at first person compared to third.

In comparison to the last question, this one was very split down the middle, some people prefer melee while others prefer ranged, although it was split I decided to go with a melee weapon in the end as it was much simpler for me to create, giving me more time to get on with the other parts of my plan.

My third and fourth questions were more about the world as opposed to direct gameplay, the first one asks about leaderboards for things like time, kills, etc, turns out that everyone likes leaderboards! So this led to me to adding them to the game, the second one asks whether people like puzzles in shooter games, I was very surprised to see that everyone likes puzzles, as there is definitely an argument to be made about the fact that puzzles can ruin the pace of shooter games, but at the same time it increases the depth of the gameplay, requiring players to think quickly while also dealing with enemies.