Core Gameplay Loop

The hermit can attack enemies using his staff or throwing minions at them. If attacking in rapid succession with the staff, the third hit becomes a stronger hit. Throwing minions does damage on impact if they hit enemies, and if they land on the ground they will search for puzzles that they can solve for the hermit. To regain health the hermit can eat fruits growing from plants, these fruits can also be used to revive and heal damaged spirits.

Process

For me to achieve the desired camera I worked with Cinemachine. I had to find the right camera distance to get nice camera angle and field of view to get a nice perspective.

Next up is to find a smooth camera movement. The camera dampening and look a head is the key to find a nice weight to the cameras movement.

Lastly I added some minor noise to the camera so that it is never completely still.

Project management

The entire development of The Hermit was done from home during the covid quarantine. This was challenging for us.  To solve this the team used discord for communication, meeting and planning, and Miro to come up with the design and plan the project. 

In Miro we created a scrum board containing. A product backlog divided into categories to help us create user stories, that we prioritized depending necessity for the project. A weekly backlog containing the user stories being worked on, and a board with tasks and their progress user stories being worked on.

Level Design

When designing the level for the game we wanted it to feel open and have the player explore around the level, unlocking new areas as new spirit types became available. We also wanted the player to have a good onboarding section where they get a feel for the game and try out the mechanics.

As development moved on we had to cut parts of the level and go for a more linear approach to the design. The change was made due to lack of time and the benefit would be a better onboarding section. Even with the last minute changes we were able to keep most of the initial design.

Washed-Up

Washed-Up is a chaotic pvp, physic based party game. Each players goal is to become employee of the month by saving the most plates spewing out from a broken dishwasher. Stack plates at all costs even if you have to sabotage for your co-workers.

Plate Physics

Catching fully physic based plates was difficult and did not feel fun. To solve this issue we created magnets for each plate and the tray.

The magnets force was tuned enough to make the plates able to stack on each other. But at the same time the player would have to be careful not to drop them. This created a risk and reward moment, for the players. Will they stack more and risk losing all.

Plate Spawner

The game contains five spawn points one above each table. One of these spawners will light up and become a super spawner, increasing the spawn rate by a lot. The super spawner will rotate every few seconds during the match. This is to make the players move more and cause more chaos.

Each time a plate spawns it has a chance to become a golden plate which is worth more points!

Behavior Tree

The goal with this prototype was to create a single behavior tree could control and transition between all NPCs.

In the prototype we set up healthy npcs that would roam around and hide from zombies, a couple of zombies that would search for healthy npcs.

When a healthy npc got hit by a zombie they become infected and eventually becomes a zombie. 

Quest System

A simple quest system that is  very world of warcraft inspired. Creating new quests can easily be done using the Questmanager.

The prototype features, accepting, completing from quest npcs. It also features a questlog that displays current quests and previously completed quests.

Completing quests can unlock new follow up quests.The player can also abandon quests.

Package or project avaliable on request.