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Dune Strider

Role: Designer

Engine: Unreal Engine 4

Genre: Trading, Strategy, RPG

Platform: PC

Duration: September 2021 - July 2022

Team Size: 20

My Contributions

As a Gameplay and Systems Designer on the Dune Strider project, I devoted half my time to team management and half to my role as a designer. I was responsible for defining the player camera and movement, as well as the overall combat concept, through the creation of concepts and prototypes. I ensured effective communication and alignment of the team vision.

I implemented the Unreal Gameplay Ability System, including pipelines, and created guidelines and technical design documents for the team's designers. I also designed and established the combat system, producing comprehensive technical design documents to guide development.

I conducted research to establish the visual guidelines for the game's UI, then implemented it using the UINav plugin.

As part of my role as a combat designer, I conceptualized and brought to life a boss fight that served as the climax and primary goal for the player. This involved designing behaviors, animations, and all other necessary elements.

In addition, I played a key role in finalizing the level design, where I redesigned and improved sections that were not up to established standard by set-dressing and creation of gameplay areas.

Combat and Ability System

Establishing Combat

Combat concept

Explored different combat systems
Established real time combat style
Implemented & Established the Unreal Gameplay Ability System
Created prototypes of different abilities
Created a benchmark ability to set the quality of the abilities

Combat Concept

Example abilities & Quality

Benchmark Ability Example - Cannon Ability

Created ability quality standards for benchmark ability
Used gameplay cues for sound and visual effects
Created document for designers on how to use the Gameplay Ability System and what the guidelines are for using it for our game. Link
Made code understandable for team

Gameplay ability blueprint - Cannon Ability

Actor blueprint - Cannon Ability

Benchmark Ability Example - Barrel Shot

Created a way to use area targeting abilities in the game using decals
Wrote blueprint for example ability

Gameplay ability blueprint - Area Targeting

Actor blueprint - Area Targeting

Concept

Boss Fight

The idea of a boss fight had been floating around since start of development.

I first pitched the Sandworm with the gif you can see on the right as a sort of an overworld boss that would add a different challenge to the player. Initially we decided we needed to put our resources elsewhere.

Throughout development we realized we needed a concrete player goal to finish our game, and I decided to bring back the Sandworm. I prepared a pitch document and presented it to the team. It was received well and we went forward with it.

Afterwards I continued sketching and created the abilities for the Sandworm.

Concept

Sandworm early concept

Sandworm Ability concept sketches

Design

For efficient development, I decided that the AI of the Sandworm should be controlled by its abilities. Additionally, as I setup the GAS system, it was easier to use it to aid the development as well.

Due to the boss needing to serve as a climactic end for the player experience, there are 3 important pillars that the boss needs to satisfy.

Serve as a memorable and satisfying end
It needs to challenge the players skills, and gained power ups
It has to be a reason to progress towards

To make the boss memorable I felt that the experience needed to make a significant impact on the player. I decided that the boss should consist out of 3 phases and each phase should have different effects on their abilities. Additionally I came up with the idea to use sound design to enhance the boss fight and hype the player.

In the image to the right you can see the design of the abilities per phase.

Below you can find the design and implementation for the boss music.

For reference, boss phases are made with event listeners in Unreal. For example, when the boss enters a new phase, it will call an event where other blueprints will start their functionality once that event is called.

Boss music design

Made all 3 tracks into 1 audio cue which can be controlled in blueprints.

Unmuting of the phase music whenever the boss enters that phase.

To challenge the players' acquired abilities, I decided that the abilities the boss has should be able to be countered. Additionally the boss abilities should make the player think of their approach and use their abilities strategically.

Examples of this can be seen in the sketch here. The boss is also significantly harder if the player has not acquired any additional abilities.

This ties into the boss being served as a goal that the player can progress towards. In Dune Strider, one of the main points of progress is unlocking new abilities and upgrading them. Needing these abilities to make it easier to defeat the boss, gives a clear purpose to the player on why they would need to upgrade or unlock new abilities.

Prototypes

To get optimal feedback and make the work as efficient as possible, I designed and iterated by the use of rapid prototyping. As soon as I could make something in unreal, I made sure that I could have something to show to prove my design, get feedback and iterate.

For the development of the abilities I used the Gameplay Ability System, which is the same system that serves the player combat system.

To the right you can see the various stages of the prototypes.

Early Development Sandworm prototypes

Sandworm prototypes after initial design

Sandworm abilities test, with sounds and visuals

Final result

Ability blueprinting

The abilities of the Sandworm are setup with the Gameplay Ability System and general blueprinting.

The Sandworm first checks whether the player is in melee range. Depending on the range, the Sandworm will try to use different abilities.

These are setup with a simple randomizer to a switch. When the condition is not met, for example the Sandworm is not in its appropriate phase, the process will repeat until the Sandworm can use an ability.

Sandworm range ability selection.

Once an ability is selected, it will call the Gameplay Ability Blueprint (GA) of the selected ability, which controls the behavior of it with the use of Gameplay Effect Blueprints.

In this example, you can see how the swing ability works and how combining it with animation states gives a satisfying result.