Combat Design:
Designed three unique player attacks.

Designed three enemy types and assisted in their implemententation using Unreal Behavior Trees.

Designed a lock-on system to direct player's attacks towards the closest enemy.

Implemented a Hack & Slash Style System that dynamically changes the game's music.

System Design:
Balanced player and enemy stats such as damage, range, knockback and cooldown.

Designed a wave manager to spawn enemies in arenas.

General Game Design:
Designed the game camera and controls.

Created an asset list, organized meetings, and pitched the game presentations.

Implemented UI, VFXs and sounds in game, using unreal blueprints, animation notifies and sound cues.

Implemented all the vibrations used for the haptics of the PS5 controller.

Created a bug list document to keep track of issues and fix them following their priority.

For the combat design, I started this task by researching and studying the enemy design of my main references Hifi Rush and Devil May Cry 5.
The first challenge was how to design a fun, fast-paced combat while maintaining the identity of the game, meaning all combat would happen while riding a rocket.

So, I came up with three unique attacks that used the player's rocket in different ways (Swirl, Slam, and Barrage) and included a boost ability, used to disengage enemies or perform platforming.

Then, to reach our intended experience, I decided on some key elements:

• Constant Player Movement: The player's rocket is always in motion, forcing them to think and react quickly during combat. This continuous forward momentum keeps the gameplay fast-paced and maintain players engaged.

• Animation Montages: Having only one animator, we used animation montages for attacks, to speed up production, as this approach eliminated the need for blending animations.

• Attack Commitment: Attacks cannot be interrupted by other inputs, except movement, or the current animation montage would be disrupted. Started as a setback, but ended adding depth to the combat, rewarding strategic decision-making.

The light attack or Rocket Swirl is intended to be the main choice through the game. It executes quickly, causes little damage, and can be chained into a three-hit combo when used in rapid succession. Each consecutive strike within the combo deals bonus damage.

In the first iteration, the attack stopped the player's movement. However, after playtesting, I reworked it into a dashing attack that locks onto the target. This adjustment not only complemented the game’s fast-paced nature but also added a strategic element, allowing players to use the attack for both offense and repositioning.

The Rocket Slam takes longer to execute but creates a powerful Area Of Effect (AOE) explosion, dealing massive damage. This design follows the risk-reward principle, requiring precise timing for maximum payoff.

During playtesting, I observed that players mainly used this ability while in combat. To balance its power, I introduced a cooldown to it, ensuring that its use remained strategic and didn't overshadow other combat mechanics.

The Rocket Barrage is a ranged attack and a resource sink. It consumes Scrap to shoot a burst of missiles from the player's back, the more Scrap spent the more the missiles. Although it deals low damage, it is useful for poking enemies and maintaining Style Points.

After the attacks were done, during playtests, I noticed some players struggled to land hits with the Swirl attack due to the constant forward movement of the player's rocket.

To address this, I designed a lock-on system that guides the player's attacks toward the nearest enemy or the center of the camera.
The Barrage also relies on this system, and can only be executed when an enemy is locked on.

Then, I implemented through Blueprints a visual widget to highlight the locked-on target, providing clear feedback to the player. This solution drastically improved the combat experience, making it more intuitive and accessible.

The blueprint checks if an enemy is inside the locking range. When they are, it renders the health bar and targeting widgets. As soon as the enemy is outside locking range it sets the visibility of the widgets as false.

Like many Hack & Slash, our game needed a Style System to boost the player's excitement as they landed consecutive hits on enemies without taking damage.
I designed multiple style levels, ranging from D to S and culminating in R: RocketTastic.

Then, I created a custom event that gets called every time the style level changes. I used this event to play unique sounds and dynamically amplify the game’s music as players reached higher style levels.

Then I implemented the UI elements to display the current style rank.
In a future iteration, I desire to multiply the resource gains based on the style points obtained during combat, further rewarding skillful play.

As the gameplay and system designer, I needed to be able to tweak various key elements such as damage values, speed, and so on.

Working with the programmers we developed various components to quickly visualize and access the required stats within the Engine.

These tools enabled me to tweak damage, hitbox size, knockback, and so on, for each attack. We applied the same approach to enemies so that I could easily balance their health points, movement speed, and other critical stats.

With our combo system, we had to find a visual way to tell when an attack animation was done so we could kick off the next one.

Collaborating with my programmers, we designed a method to tweak animation keyframes for different phases.

For instance, PlayerSwirl spawns the attack Hitbox, which deals damage and limits player inputs to movement only, while PlayerSwirlFinish disables damage, lets all inputs back in and creates a time window to continue the combo.

I also took advantage of animation notifies to add sounds and VFX at the right keyframes for each animation.

During the project, I dived into Unreal Engine 5's AI framework (AI Controller, Behavior Tree, and Blackboard) to help the programmers prototype and implementing the AI. After consulting the programmers, I created three enemy types, one being a boss enemy, and used flowcharts to communicate their behaviors to the team. Furthermore, I was in charge of implementing all the VFXs and sounds for each enemy.

The first enemy, Goro, is a slow but powerful melee unit with moderate health.
It delivers heavy, slow punches and will constantly attempt to close the distance to engage the player in close combat. If the player is too far away or unreachable, Goro will perform a Jump attack to quickly cover ground and strike.

Moreover, considering the game's setting, I wanted to emphasize the enemies' cooperation, as from a narrative point of view, they are both part of the enforcers controlling the city. For instance, Goros will guard and protect the second enemy type, the Beedrone, while it charges its attack, highlighting their role as a unified force in maintaining order.

The Beedrone is a swift but fragile ranged enemy whose primary role is to fire at the player, forcing them to stay mobile. Its attacks are designed to keep the player on their toes, reinforcing the game’s emphasis on constant movement.

For the game’s boss fight, the team designed a variety of attacks for the boss to use.

Once the programmers implemented these attacks, my role was to build the boss phases using Unreal Behavior Trees.

Using my custom nodes, I adjusted the number, speed, and timing between attacks to establish a rhythmic flow to the fight.

After each phase, I introduced new attacks and reduced the dodge window to progressively increase the difficulty and challenge the player.

Character

Designing the movement for this game was a big challenge, as we did not have a clear direction or reference at the start of the project. The Overrider demo came out during the development, which was an optimal reference for some aspects.

Given the premise of riding a rocket and engaging multiple enemies, I opted for an automatic forward movement with a high movement speed and the use of a lerp for rotation to avoid quick turns, simulating a more realistic rocket maneuver.

After that, I needed to consider what would happen if the player´s rocket was destroyed, so I added a basic movement for the character when grounded.
During playtesting, the team realized that being grounded and simply waiting for the rocket to respawn was tedious. To address this, we experimented with various solutions, such as providing the player additional mechanics while grounded, like using stun grenades or engaging in precise platforming.

However, we ultimately decided to eliminate ground movement, as it slowed the game's pacing too much. Our focus was on maintaining a fast-paced rocket-riding experience.

Camera

For the camera, I took inspiration from Devil May Cry 5 and Hi-Fi Rush, making key design choices that significantly influenced the gameplay experience:

• Close Third-Person Perspective: Opting for a close third-person view immerses the player in the game world while maintaining clear visibility of the surrounding environment around the character.

• Dynamic Camera: The camera adapts fluidly to the player's movement. When the player is in motion, it pulls back slightly, providing a broader field of view and better spatial awareness. When the player stops, the camera moves in closer, heightening the sensation of speed and intensity during high-action moments.

• Independent Rotation: Players can rotate the camera freely with input controls, allowing them to move in one direction while looking in another. This offers great flexibility in combat and exploration.

Controls

I mapped the light attack, Rocket Swirl, to the right trigger and Square, following the conventions of many hack-and-slash games. Lock-on was assigned to the left trigger, while movement boost was placed on both bumpers for quick and intuitive access. Special attacks were triggered using Triangle and Circle, while X served as the standard jump button.

I implemented dynamic vibration feedback on the controller, varying the intensity and pattern based on the player's actions. Each attack, boost, and railgrind triggers a unique vibration response, providing tactile feedback to the player.