Combaticon
Overview
Combaticon is a 3D Action Brawler created in Unreal Engine 4 for Sheridan College's Capstone project. The Capstone project is the culmination of 3 years of learning applied to one project over the course of a year.
My duties included Game Design, Level Design, Sound Design, Playtesting/QA, and Documentation.
Role:
Lead Game Designer
As Lead Game Designer I had to clearly communicate ideas and plans to my team which consisted of 2 artists, 1 programmer, and 1 Project manager.
In Combaticon, players fight enemy A.I cooperatively using Gear. Gear is what determines your Combos and Special Attack. There are 2 Hand Gear and 2 Foot Gear that players can use.
I created these reference cards to highlight the design of each gear in a simple readable format that the team had access to.
Since our game was inspired by MMA, we used real world attacks found in Martial Arts. I created this Move Board below to showcase what kinds of attacks we wanted to use and what animations to create or find online.
Level Design
Combaticon is split into two levels; Street Rats and Doorstep to Destiny.
The visual aesthetic of Street Rats is the dirty back streets of a dystopian city. Crime and garbage litter the streets in these lawless areas.
The level is split into a few different areas such as; Bar Exit, Back Streets, Parking Lot, and the Club. Each area introduces different variations of enemy types and offers new Gear to the player so they can experiment with what they like to use.
The enemies that the player(s) face are relatively weak. This allows the player to feel powerful while learning the game and getting used to the UI on screen and the information we are trying to communicate to them.
Level 2 is split up into 3 areas; Back Lot, Bridge, and Combaticon Entrance. The goal for level 2 was to take the training wheels off and provide a larger challenge to the player.
Enemies are stronger and in larger groups, but the player gains no new abilities. Since this is the last level in the vertical slice, we wanted to test the player(s) abilities and understanding of the game.
What I've Learned
I've learned so much from this project. Being a combination of my first official Lead role; learning and using a new engine I'm not familiar with; the second only project I've worked on for longer than a few months; and my first time making a fighting game.
The target demographic for our game was originally 25+ year old fighting game fans familiar with other games inside the genre like Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, and TMNT. However since we didn't have enough staples of the genre in our game we weren't able to attract that crowd. We did, however, attract a different crowd. We took note at the Oakville Public Library playtest session were we showcased Combaticon, that a large number of young children with ages ranging from 5-10 really enjoyed our game. Due to the bright colors, flashy lights, lack of blood, and how easy the game is to play and master it was great for young kids to play and just mess around until they figured it out. It was really interesting to see happen in front of me and I am quite pleased with the result.
Using Unreal Engine 4 was a great learning opportunity. Using the Sequencer to make cut-scenes was rewarding and fun to use along with having some real-world application for the cinematography knowledge I've gathered from all my film related electives.
This project was an amazing experience and working with a talented team for 8 months was the capstone project I was hoping for.
