9 Developers
5 Weeks
Made for - PC
Star Strike aimed to fill a hole in the Hack n' Slash genre, by having the player fighting in a fully 3D accessible world. The game is focused on the players movement and world placement. The player must defend the portal to heaven from the invading army of hellish beasts trying to break through.
Originally, the game was set to be a horde defender, but we changed it as the Hack n' Slash genre felt more fitting for this game. It was developed by Heavenly Creatures as a part of Game Project 1 at Playgroundsquad.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Gameplay Design
Star Strike is a game heavily focused on combining movement and combat into one. Since the player can traverse a 3D environment on each axis' (x, y, z) the game's combat focus requires the player to use their movement abilities to defend the portal.
Star Strike's combat mechanics needed to be carefully constructed as to not upset the balance between player and enemies. This meant limiting the player's attacks to melee only. This, in turn, helped make the player utilize movement to fight against all enemy types.
Development Process
Ideation
Iteration
IDEATION
Star Strike was my original concept and I set in stone the style of gameplay the game should have, defend the gates. After discussing the idea with the team we decided on having the player defend a portal instead.
My co-designer Edvin Norevik and I worked on defining the combat system and mechanics. Conceptualizing what player mechanics were fitting for this game and its scope. We decided against having any ranged attacks as it would offset the gameplay balance. Instead, we decided to give the player a dash mechanic that deals damage, to give the player another tool for handle the enemies.
I handled the conceptualization of enemy behavior. We decided to have two different enemies in the game to liven up the gameplay. This effectively turned it from a tomato chopper game into a more fleshed-out Hack n' Slash.
Iteration
The gameplay design and moment-to-moment action went through rigorous testing and iteration to try and make things like attacks feel impactful. Improving hit registration feedback and enemy behavior proved to be our biggest challenges but payed off in the end. We research how other fighting games show player feedback on attacks, as well as changed the camera's functionality to flow better with the player's movement.
FINAL SHOW
Lead Game Design
I was the one who conceived the game concept for Star Strike. Originally the game's scope included five levels with four different enemy types on top of bosses. After some feedback and thinking critically about the amount of content planned I decided to cut back, this was to create something playable and polished rather than a content-flooded demo.
The goal that I strived toward with Star Strike was to provide the player with a variety-based gameplay experience. Trying to make entice the player to continue playing and offering new ways to play. I wanted to emphasize utilizing all three axis' of gameplay to offer an environment to master the mechanics in.
At the same time, we didn't want to disorientate the player and lead them away from their objective. This is the reason as to why we kept the regular enemies and the objective on the same singular plane. Due to time constraints, the full vision of the game couldn't be fulfilled, but thanks to careful planning with the down scoping and great team communication the final product turned out fantastic.
PROJECT MANAGER
I assumed the role of Project Manager. I kept the team informed about changes and made sure that everyone was on the same page. I was also the one who kept track of all documentation. I handled the asset breakdown sheet as well as Trello boards.
I also overlooked all parts of production to make sure that we were meeting our goals. I also held the weekly sprint review presentations.
