Project Overview

This is a sword fighting combat system which aims to create an intuitive, immersive, and satisfying experience for melee combat so it approaches sword fighting in games with much more strategic depth, precision, and skill-based gameplay experience. Players must perform attacks or blocks by deliberately swinging their mouse in any of the 8 different directions(up, down, left, right and diagonals) along with parries, combos, and special moves. This is prototyped in a third-person 1v1 setting in attempts to create the feel of the game For Honor but with more complexity. Parries can be done by performing a block towards the opposite direction of the incoming attack at the right timing. Combos and special moves are also based on the mouse gestures such that combos follow the gestures in the order they're performed in and special moves are performed by holding Q and drawing a pattern with mouse gestures. These patterns are fixed and built into the player's moveset. Lastly, the players can test this out with dummies and enemy AI in the Unity scene.

Unity C# Animation Design

Responsibilities: Gameplay Programming, Animation Programming, Technical Design
Development Time: 7 Weeks

Systems and Features

8 Directional Attacks, Blocks, & Parries
Combos & Special Moves
Player: Character Controller & State Machine
Root Motion Animation
Procedural Animation
Animation: State Machines
Animation: 2D Blend Trees
Animation: Curves & Events
Animation: Masks & Layer Transitions
Health Component System
Enemy AI
Combat Feedback Mechanics
Custom Camera
Coroutines

What I Learnt

I gained a deeper understanding on how combat systems can be structured, the challenges involved with it, and especially on many animation tools and systems used to create fluid motions, along with linking combat with the animations responsively. Addtionally, I also had to research into game feel elements, enemy AI from God of War, how camera perspectives affect the player, and methods to make this system feasible for PvE instead of just 1v1 PvP combat. So overall, this project gave me both technical and design experiences for making a rewarding sword fighting system.

Future Work

Different Character Classes
Force System
Multiplayer & Matchmaking Support
Cosmetic Progression Systems