Tournamental
Mastery Level
Introduction
Tournamental started as a themeless tile-based game with a few basic mechanics. Over two sprints, I added mechanics to enhance the game and slowly develop a theme. The first mechanic I designed was a grappling hook system, allowing players to traverse three hazard tiles safely. The second mechanic, created by a fellow designer, was disappearing tiles, which allowed the player to cross them only once before turning into a pit. By combining these two mechanics, a tomb-delving adventure theme starts to form for the game.
Mechanics
Grappling Hook
I drew inspiration from the hookshot in Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. For my mechanic, the player can use the grappling hook to cross dangerous and impassable tiles. There will be connection point walls allowing the grappling hook to attach and pull the player. The range will be up to 4 tiles, meaning the player can safely cross three consecutive pit tiles. When the hook finds a connection point, a locking sound will play, and then the player will animate to the connection point and play a reeling sound. A falling metal sound will play if the hook does not find a connection point, and the grappling hook will reel back in.
Grappling Hook Sprint Retrospective
1. What went well for you during this sprint?
During this sprint, several things went well for me. I designed a grappling hook system and an associated wall with a connection point for the hook to latch onto. I created a new wall with a connection point that faces the direction the designer configures. When the player fires the hook at the connection wall, it will treat it as a failed grapple attempt if the player is not facing the connection. The other part that went well was the modifications of the player entity. The player houses all of the new logic to fire, extend, retract, and move the player depending on various conditions.
2. What did not go well and could have been improved?
There were a few things that could have gone better, and I would like to improve. The first was trying to find audio files that fit with my mechanic. Having the proper feedback to the user is critical, and if the sound aligns differently from the visuals, the dissonance will cause the immersion to break. The second thing that could have gone better was editing the audio files I did find. I had to take a couple of audio files and create segments for different phases of the mechanic activation.
An example is the grappling hook sound, which contains the firing, line-extending, and locking sound of its attaching. The firing and locking sounds were easy, but making a loopable extending sound took extensive work. The retraction sound had a similar issue of not having an optimal loopable segment. While the ones I created work, I am eager to refine the sounds to provide a better user experience.
3. What will you commit to improving for the future?
I plan to learn my audio editing tools to provide better sound assets for my mechanic and look for new sources of sound effects. Having a larger pool of resources to pull sounds from will allow me to find better matches to the visuals. These two improvements will increase the quality of any game I work on going forward and give me a more extensive skill set to use in a smaller dev team environment.
Disappearing Tiles
The player will have to navigate the level and strategically plan around tiles. Certain tiles appear like cracked tiles but disappear after the player leaves them. These tiles turn into pits and stop the player from backtracking. If the player attempts to cross over after a tile has transitioned into a pit, the character dies, and the level will restart. For the tiles to return, the player must reset the level.
Disappearing Tiles Sprint Retrospective
1. What went well for you during this sprint?
During the sprint, I was fortunate to have comprehensive documentation from my classmate. This resource proved invaluable, giving me the necessary information to build the mechanic. Surprisingly, this meant I did not need to seek clarification or ask any questions about their design. However, I did need to slightly deviate from their directions for the Tile modifications. In their design, the original tile is destroyed, and the pit tile is returned. I had to split the return to incorporate an animation of the tile falling. This way, if the player were ignored, it would only return the new tile. After the animation was complete, I could then manage the destruction of the falling tile myself.
2. What did not go well and could have been improved?
Several things did not go well and can be improved. I spent two days searching for a cracked texture for the disappearing tile and a falling sound effect. Even with my vast Unreal Engine asset library and the free resources available through various sites, I did not have a texture I was happy with. I could have purchased one from the marketplace, but I was not confident I would use it after this project. I settled with a scratched glass texture from a free asset pack. After some manipulation of the texture RGB it created a passable cracked look. I had similar trouble in this sprint as in the Navigator sprint. Finding a sound that fit the game's aesthetics was a challenge. I went with a descending tin whistle sound. This sound made the tile falling feel slightly cartoonish, but it was functional.
3. What will you commit to improving for the future?
Looking ahead, I am determined to enhance my skills in texture creation. This will not only improve how I use textures in the engine but also enable me to create unique and customized visuals for my projects. Part of this learning journey involves understanding the Unreal Engine 5 material system. This system offers a plethora of possibilities to add depth and individuality to projects. My goal is to grasp the fundamentals of creating my own materials, learn how to expose variables for material instances, and create optimized visuals for any future projects I undertake.
What's Next?
In the next sprint, I would add either Donn Leatherman's "Bombs and Destructible Environments" or Tom Silveri's "Exploding Barrel & Destructible Wall" as the next mechanic. Both would fit the current mechanics and take the game one step closer to being a temple-raiding game. Having bombs would allow the player to open a few new routes per level and even open up the possibility of adding pickups to the game. On the other hand, having barrels the player needs to move around would also present a challenge with planning, especially if the routes contain any disappearing tiles.
One other item I would change is how the character turns when moving. Currently, the only way to change the characters facing is to move into an adjacent tile in the direction you wish to face. This movement style limits what a designer can create for a level because they must allow for the character to turn and face the desired direction. My change would update the move logic, enabling the character to face a direction before moving to the next tile.