Chimeras
Role:
Game Designer & 3D Artist
Development duration:
8 months
Team size:
5
Overview
Developed by Nimbus Games, a student team from Sheridan College’s Honours Bachelor of Game Design class of 2020. The design challenge was student led, to create an innovative multiplayer game.
Table of Contents
Project Vision
Competitive shooter with
fast and intense rounds that mixes stealth and action gameplay in an atmospheric deep sea environment
in a traditional Deathmatch game mode.
Design Pillars
Predator and Prey
Fast-paced arena combat where players are hunters and are being hunted at the same time
Customization
Easy to pick up
Hard to master
Interchangeable parts that allow
different play styles to emerge
Simple mechanics with low entry floor, but a high skill ceiling
Creature Design and Development
Creatures are the only moving entity in the game and the main focus, because of that, some
challenges appeared in the development regarding visual information, the combination of parts, the underwater environment, and limited team resources.
Designing parts
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The design objectives are for the parts to be:
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- Visually Appealing: if some parts don't look appealing players might not want to try them.
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- Visually Distinctive From each other: there are 3 creature archetypes, each one of these focuses on one of 3 stats, damage, health, and mobility. (See picture above for creature archetypes). This parts should resemble the stat that they focus on, making it clear to players what sett-up other players might be using.
- Visual Clarity: prominent shapes and shape language across the parts allow players to easily see the main features, this in addition with the bio-luminescence (hover over image on top) allows players
to identify part features even in dark areas.
Dynamic Bones (Animations)
Due to team and time constrains, it was impossible to implement a traditional animation system in the game, so instead we implemented dynamic bones (unity asset) to every part.
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This way not only we get natural looking animations underwater but also the ability to combine any body parts without having to worry about animations
Generated Textures
A big challenge was
not being able to use normal maps with the shader we used, so instead, a combination of ambient occlusion and thickness maps generated in substance painter were used to create a combined map to simulate the surface detail.
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Additionally the map used for the bio-luminescence was also made generating maps in substance painter, mixing and modifying them.
Light Emission
The player model features a material with an emission texture. The creature’s body will light up as the player moves, performs attacks or dashes, giving players visual information. This light emission is a great indicator to players of what others are about to do or doing.
To differentiate between
creatures, each player is assigned a color in
which they will glow.
Bubble Trail
The player emits bubbles as they move, that disappear after a few seconds. The amount of particles the player emits is dependent on the player's speed, but If the player moves slowly it won't emit bubbles.
Combat
The combat is very much range oriented since this is a shooter, although it allows for lots of mobility
and some melee combat opportunities. Combat interactions are greatly increase with more than 2 players.
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The camera is free looking and in third person, allowing you to see your own body, this lets the player see if they are hit as well as how much light they are emitting or how much of their body they are showing.
A good comparison of the control and movement system would be Risk of Rain 2.
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A variety of skills incentive the player to plan their approach to encounters with other players.
Skills
Ranged Attack
The player can tap the right Trigger to shoot fast fire but also has the option to hold it to charge a shot that will be bigger
size and deal increased damage.
Melee Attack
Player performs a strong short vertical attack around them. This attack deals great damage and allows for a different yet aggressive play style, as well as rewarding ranged attacks
from a safe distance.
Dash
Player can dash forwards and to the sides, each dash consumes a charge (charges represented
with bubbles above the health bar) and they will slowly restore until reaching a maximum of 3.
Stealth
The game is set in the depths of the ocean, and that the environment very dark in certain regions, the environment is divided into three different sections, divided by the verticality of the map:
- The top zone where sight lines are clear and there are almost no hiding spots.
- The bottom zone is the complete opposite, very low visibility, sight lines are very short and there are plenty of spots to hide.
- The middle zone is a mixture, and where players spend most of the time, having the option to transition to any of the other areas to search or escape from other players.
Hiding Spots
In addition, Seaweeds, caves and coral are located all around the level. Creating a variety of cover options with different degrees of visibility giving opportunities for players to hide and cut sight-lines. Most tunnels and obstacles have multiple points of entry to give the player options to get in and out.
Game Modes
There are two different types of game modes:
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- Last Man Standing: in this game mode all players spawn at the beginning of the match and the last one standing wins. This can be really enjoyable for experienced players, and with every player death the match gets progressively longer, making it hard for players to find each other in the map and leaving players out of the game for long periods of time.
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- Death match: in this game mode players will re spawn after death, and after 3 minutes the player with the most kills and wins. This game mode increases player to player interaction since the amount of players doesn't decrease over kill, and aggression is encouraged since a limiting resource is the time remaining.
Customization
Creature Selection
Before every match, players choose between multiple heads, bodies and tails, giving the player the option to choose and experiment a with multiple set-ups, promoting different playstyle options.
3 types of body parts
Every body part can affect a range of game statistics:
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- Max Speed
- Acceleration
- Max Health
- Deceleration
- Strafing Speed
- Turn Speed
- Gun Type (Head Only)
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Wile each unique part has its own stats, no single parts exceed in all departments.
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Wile each unique part has its own stats, no single parts exceed in all departments.
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Each part specializes on one of these:
- Attack - Defense - Mobility -
1 Weapon type
Each head type possesses a gun type, allowing for further customization on combat.
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