Like a Hero
Game Feel fit for a Champion
Let's Get Crunchy
One of my favorite details to gather up while playing a game is what the designers are doing to achieve a certain feel. Screen shake? A special shader effect? A more dramatic animation? A unique particle? I the special attention spent during the signal, update, or resolution of the action?
I'm a believer in giving every action some love. Game studio Vlambeer (creators of the UX sensation Nuclear Throne) is a huge inspiration to my feedback process- their games are amplified with amazing feedback. Here's how I take common gameplay features and make them feel great.
Signal - Update - Resolution
When I'm planning out gameplay feedback breaking it down into these three categories helps me make sure that the feedback doesn't break the game feel but instead enhances it.
Signal: What happens to warm the player up to the feedback, or let them know that something is happening?
Update: What happens during the feedback?
Resolve: What happens to finish off the feedback cleanly?
Creating a Shield
About Like a Hero
Project Specs
Engine: Unity 2021.1.10
Duration: 3 weeks
Solo Student Project
Like a Hero is a solo 3-week project of mine, where I took 5 common HUD pieces and created immersive feedback for them. Describing the details for all five would be many pages, so this page will focus on the feedback for creating a shield and that shield taking damage.
Creating a Shield - Signal
To kick off the effect we start with a simple animation to show the player something is about to happen.
This animation has a very clean place for an update- right where the player hits the ground with their sword. As part of the signal, the lift to the knight's arm has a basic sound effect to show this will be impactful.
Creating a Shield
Update and Resolution
This effect is a combination of:
Three Unique Particle Effects:
Ripple in Terrain:
Lens Distortion:
There are some unique audio efffects as well: A high pass filter, reverb, and the resounding crack for when the sword hits the earth.
These 'Update' effects are all triggered when the animation reaches the point where the sword touches the ground. When they finish the yellow shield is enabled. Here's what it looks like together:
Managing the Resolution:
I handle resolutions by using curves in my effects: particles shrink in size, their transparency turns to zero, the rocks lift before returning to their original position, sound returns to normal gently rather then suddenly, lens distortion bubbles back to the original screen. If my effects just started and suddenly disappeared they'd break immersion- by having them all come into existence and exit gradually, each effect in a way has it's own signal, update, and resolve.
Shield Damage
Signal - Update -Resolution
This happens a lot faster than the creation of the shield, so our signal, update, and resolution will be confined to a quicker space. The important part is that everything still smoothes in and out.
This effect is a combination of:
Three Unique Particle Effects:
Screen Shake:
Sheild Shake:
Lens Distortion (heavier then before):
Vignette:
Material Change:
Flinch Animation:
You'll notice that the material change has no signal- it just happens suddenly. Alone this effect is jarring and immersion breaking, but it contains important information: the color change along with the cracks worsen with each hit giving the player a sense of damage.
To make up for the lack of the signal, the other effects surround and move the shield to take away the suddenness of the change. While many of the above effects can be considered a part of the signal, this ones lack of a transition in or out places it squarely in update.
For sound, there is an sfx and a reverb filter.
Here's all the effects together:
You may notice the yellow shield hud piece over the healthbar. This double encodes that the player has a shield and that the shield is taking damage instead of the player. This shield health bar has its own particle effects and slow lerp to communicate the damage.