Our Design Document originally intended for 5 unique levels, each having their own boss to completely round off the experience. Unfortunately due to time constraints we quickly determined that was an unreachable goal, so we culled it down to 3 levels. Our first level (B3) is the dungeon level, with the Shield Barbarian blocking the player's way to the next level (B2).

The Shield Barbarian is a formidable foe compared to the minions and champions present in the level, posing new threats and challenges to the player. She is specifically a melee oriented combatant, using her size and reach to both throw the player around and keep them on their toes, occasionally cheering herself on.

The Shield Barbarian has the following ability set:

Standard Attack (swinging her hammer):
This is her basic go-to move when she is on cooldown for her other attacks.

Heavy Attack (this is a spinning attack that strikes all around her, then is followed by a charge at the player):
This attack is created to keep the player on their toes when in close quarters to her, as this attack has the potentially to really hurt if you are not prepared.

Charge (this is a relatively simple attack, she will charge at the player's location rapidly followed by a decent damage output)
This is an attack designed to keep the player moving and to close any distance that the player has made away from the enemy.

Stomp (this attack spawns 3 area of attack environmental hazards that do damage over time)
This attack has 2 main purposes. The first being to provide hazards for the player to avoid while maintaining combat. The second is that it reduces the effective size of the combat area, requiring the player to be mindful of how long they are taking to defeat the boss.

Once the Shield Barbarian has been defeated, the player then moves into the Sewers (B2). This level brings with it increased difficulty through scaled stats for minion and champion units. As the player then makes their way through the level and faces the boss, I needed to design a new set of challenges for the player.

We had roughly planned the following set of moves:

Standard Attack (shooting an arrow):
The first attack had already been implemented as a working system for the archer minions and champions, so was quite easy to port into the Archer boss.

Ricochet Attack (shooting an arrow that can bounce off of 2 surfaces before coming to a halt on the 3rd strike if it doesn't hit a player):
The second attack required creating a duplicate arrow actor that had the ability to bounce off of objects. Luckily this is easily solved with the Projectile Movement Component, as there is quite literally a checkbox called "Should Bounce". I then had to track the amount of times it had bounced to then disable this option once it had met the required number of bounces.

Rain of Arrows (shooting an arrow into the air that splits into multiple into an area effect in the room):
The final attack utilizes our Environmental Hazard system, allowing for a dynamic time based hazard using a particle system and other subsystems to provide an effect that can be adjusted as needed.

Combining these with the EQS query designed for the minion and champions which helps the AI keep a distance away from the player, this built a unique challenge for the player to overcome to reach the next and final level.

author: Clinton Butler
Posted on 7/6/2023