About
"unBEATable" was a portfolio project developed by a group of my colleagues from u-tad's Game Design and Game Programing master's shortly after we graduated. At its core, "unBEATable" explored turning hack 'n slash combat into a rhythm game, turning every combat into a pseudo-turnbased pattern memorization and reaction game at the beat of an original soundtrack.
Contributions
- Beat System
- Worked with the team's other designer and programmers to design the underlaying beat system that the whole game would be built on.
- Every action would be buffered and executed on beat, using fmod events to ensure the game would stay in sync throughout.
- Time windows would define the "quality" of the timing, and an affordance was given for a slight late hit, keeping everything parametric to allow fine tuning.
- Every action and gameplay feature could reference the BPM, signature and measure of the currently playing song to scale accordingly.
- Every action and gameplay feature was measured in beats (e.g. An enemy's anticipation may last 2 beats for a strong attack, this would scale with the song).
- Core Movement
- Implemented the player's core movement using UE4's movement component.
- Designed and implemented the Jump and Dash mechanics to work around the beat-based gameplay.
- Art & Tech Art
- Built hologram shader for on-beat effects and world dressing.
- Built a tri-planar projection "display" shader that allowed for on-beat visuals espacially y alligned across displays decorating the level.
- Stablished a paragon-style material pipeline for cheap, quick iteration.