Overview
Kick The Styx was created as part of a Junior-level Game Design class. This project is unique because it was developed off of a previously-created prototype. After it's single-semester development period, it stands as one of my more fully-featured projects.
The game is about Guh, a satyr defending the entrance to the underworld, accidentally falling in and having to make their escape. They board a ship and sail down the river Styx in order to reach a temple which they can use to escape. With no weapons at their disposal, they must rely on the power of their mighty kicks in order to knock away the damned souls attempting to hijack the ship and stop Guh's escape.
My Contributions
While I was originally placed on this project as a Game Designer, I ended up taking upon tasks of keyframe animation and programming as well.
Alongside my fellow designers, we sorted out of core systems and locomotion throughout the game. After which, we began sculpting the basic layout of the level and enemy designs with the artists. With the enemies fully designed, I quickly moved my focus to programming and implementation per the needs of the project. I took the design concepts discussed previously about enemies and began implementing them. Having ​worked on the prototype this project is based on, I had unique familiarity with the preexisting code and systems and was therefore able to rapidly create the three different enemy types. After that, I helped design the boss fight that appears at the end of the game, as well as taking some time to squash bugs and work alongside the art team to create cohesive visual language for the grapple mechanic. A few deliverables later, and I task myself with fully implementing the boss. It was tough but rewarding. I became the main designer and programmer for the entire boss section in the game. Artists, as well as fellow designers and programmers would come to me for direction and feedback on how certain game objects or code would relate to the boss. I became a small director in my own sector of the game, and because of that role, the boss fight remains one of the most polished and team's favorite parts of the game.
Designing: Scylla (The Boss)
Nearing the backend of development, I was tasked with designing and implementing a boss fight for the ending of the game. This was my favorite piece of content I worked on for this project, and it sticks out as a very polished and dynamic gameplay set piece.
To accomplish this, I had to design around a couple of core goals for a gameplay segments like this.
The goals I focused on were Player Engagement and Cinematic Appeal.
Starting from our interpretation of "Scylla" from Greek mythology, the designers and I came up with a few attacks that the boss could throw out to give the fight rhythm. The boss has a fire, lightening, and ice attack. Each serve different purposes, all with the goal of giving the player an obstacle as they damage the boss themselves. But how should the boss take damage? Our concept was to have enemies spawning around the arena, which you can kick into the boss to damage them. This solution plays into the flow of the fight well while maintaining cohesion with the combat system. Kicking enemies into other enemies, effectively making up for the fact the game has no projectiles by letting you turn enemies into projectiles, is already taught as a solution to defeating them. So the implementation of that idea into this environment is obvious and practical. This already gives the boss some flow, but good design doesn't stop there.
When making an engaging gameplay set piece, its important to allow a conversation to form between the game and the player. In this case, the boss and the player. The boss cannot feel static or oblivious, and must force the player to continue reacting to it for success. Firstly, the boss is set to perform their attacks randomly- this keeps them from being stale. Additionally, while each attack's goal is to provide challenge, each attack accomplishes a different sub-goal. The fire attack calls for the player to multitask- taking their eyes off of them for just a moment to make sure the fireballs raining from above don't land on them. The lightning attack asks the player to pay attention to the environment, as the boss leaves area-of-effect electricity fields around the arena, which the player cannot touch. The ice attack isn't so much an attack, as it is rather a tool the boss uses- temporarily spawning ice pillars to block the players attempts to kick enemies into it. Combine these three attacks with the fact that the boss is always vulnerable to attack if the player's positioning and aim is good enough, and we've created a dynamic boss that truly attracts some player engagement.
However, that isn't all that goes into a good boss. The less technical, more artistic side of it is just as important to form an interesting experience. We must pull the player in with something more immediately attractive. To put it in a comedically demeaning way, this can be accomplished through the proverbial jangling of keys. Literally- with lights, colors, and sounds. Basically, just make the boss look and feel cool.
Make it feel cinematic. I accomplished this when implementing by simply doing everything I thought a cool boss should do. Scylla looms over the player, a massive obstacle blocking your goal. Their locomotion is complete with artistic flourishes like squash & stretch, color changes, water splashes, and code execution timing. All accomplished through my skills in keyframe animation and particle systems. The way they react to damage by slightly squishing and flashing red, the way water particles spray everywhere on their entrance and defeat animations, the way each hazard spawns in on meticulously-picked frames with their own particles and animations to sell their weight/danger. All of these different bits of polish come together to create a boss that really feels fully complete and cinematic.
With these two goals accomplished, the boss fight truly feels like a wholistic gameplay set piece. It is engaging, cinematic, polished, and most of all- fun. Designing and implementing Scylla was my favorite part of this project's development.
