Hi everyone!
We are Ambitious Games, a group of three game dev students from Spain. At the moment, we have finished our university project Beat 'Em Down, a First Person Shooter rhythm game where you shoot and play to the rhythm of the music.
Check out the trailer:
Beat 'Em Down is available for free on Steam: Steam 
and on itch.io: itch.io 
DEVLOG INDEX
- Features -
- Mechanics -
- Setting -
- Weapons -
- Enemies -
- Levels -
- FEATURES -
- Play with songs of our library or any song you want:
- The music will be adjusted with the difficulty and challenges of the game (depends on BPM).
- "Real-Time" music analysis system:
- During the gameplay, the shots, the enemies and the level, will be related to the "Beat" of the music.
- Branched weapon upgrade system through challenges:
- From the beginning, challenges will appear so that the player can upgrade the main weapon.
- Complete challenges:
- These challenges are made to improve the game experience and gradually improve the weapon at hand, in order to achieve a higher possible score (bottom right of screen).
- MECHANICS -
- Movement (AWSD):
- Conventional FPS movement where the player can move in four directions.
- Dash (Left Shift):
- The player dashes in one direction to dodge enemy attacks.
- Jump (Space bar):
- Normal jumps that provide a more dynamic movement to the player and in various cases it will be essential to move through the level and complete challenges.
- Double jump (Space bar + space bar):
- The double jump will be a slight boost after the player's first jump, which will serve to encourage combat in the air and prompting the player's dynamic movement.
- Synchronized shot (Left Mouse Button):
- The player will be able to shoot as in a conventional “First Person Shooter”, controlling the camera in first person. The fact of shooting synchronized with the “beat” (which will be reflected in the center of the HUD screen) will reward the player in different ways by providing: damage, score and be able to complete challenges. In case of shooting without using the synchronized shot, the projectile will be grey but with less damage and score.
- Tooltip:
- The tooltip is used to show important information during the game such as the song the player is playing and the time remaining, or a description for each challenge he is completing.
- SETTING -
The game is set in a futuristic world in which is presented with neon aesthetics. Everything in this world is simpler and is not so detailed. Therefore all objects, enemies, environments, etc., are defined by neon colors in addition to simple geometric figures to find a sense of abstraction for the player.
- WEAPONS -
From the beginning, the player have a single main weapon which is semi-automatic and with infinite ammunition, and it has different upgrades that will be obtained through challenges during the game.
Each time the player completes the challenges, the main weapon evolve at the player's choice into three different branches: Bounce Weapon, Zig-Zag Weapon and Dispersion Weapon. And each branch has three unique and special upgrades with its own music feature:
BOUNCE WEAPON
- The Bounce Weapon fires a bouncing projectile at enemies and obstacles. If the shot is fired in an obstacle, it bounces depending on the player's angle with it, and if the shot hits an enemy, the shot detects the closest enemy in a certain range and will bounce towards them, having a maximum of 3 bounces. What's more, each time there's a beat, the shot instantiates a hexagon with a special sound effect to make it easier for the player to synchronize the shot with the beat.
- First upgrade (blue): 3 bounces.
- Second upgrade (yellow): 3 bounces, exploding on its last bounce (dealing more damage on the last bounce).
- Third upgrade (purple): 3 bounces, exploding with each bounce (dealing more damage in each bounce).
ZIG-ZAG WEAPON
- The Zig-Zag Weapon fires two projectiles (or more depending the upgrade) with a curved trajectory (sinus movement) from the point of fire of the weapon to the target.
- First upgrade (blue): 2 curved shots.
- Second upgrade (yellow): 4 curved cross-shaped shots.
- Third upgrade (purple): 4 curved X-shaped shots along with a "rain" of curved shots from both left and right.
DISPERSION WEAPON
- The Dispersion Weapon fires three dispersion projectiles: one forward and the others with an angle of 15º.
- First upgrade (blue): dispersion of three bullets.
- Second upgrade (yellow): dispersion of three bullets connected by an electrical trail.
- Third upgrade (purple): dispersion of three bullets connected by an electrical trail that deals more damage. When killing an enemy, a burst of 4 lightning bolts appears around the death area and they go to the rhythm of the music.
- ENEMIES-
In Beat 'Em Down there are different types of enemies with their own behavior, such as shoot to the beat or move to the beat. These enemies are:
COMMON ENEMIES
- Melee enemy: A cube that approaches the player to the rhythm of the music and charges towards him.
- Ranged enemy: A sphere with two semi-spheres orbiting around it and shoots from each one to the beat.
- Suicide enemy: A sphere with a number on its face. It approaches to the player bouncing to the beat. If it's near the player explodes and if the player kills it, it also explodes and damages everything around it.
ENFORCERS
- Shield enemy: A sphere with two triangles on the sides. It has a shield that covers it from the player's shots. As soon as
the player enters the firing range, the shield disappears and shoots the player in a burst to the rhythm of the music.
- Jailed enemy: A sphere trapped inside a cube that has two attack pases:
- If it's far from the player: shoots to the beat dealing a lot of damage.
- If it's close to the player: jump on himself and perform a blast in area to the rhythm of the music.
- Mirror enemy: A rectangle that approaches the player and shoots to the beat with the same weapon the player is holding. It also dashes very quickly to dodge player's shots.
SEMI-BOSS
- Cube face: A big cube that have three different behaviors depending on their mood (health).
- Happy Face: normal shooting to the beat from a distance and dash sideways.
- Sad Face: shoots two projectiles instead of one and dashes to the sides to the rhythm of the music.
- Angry Face: the cube is divided into 6 faces and they are placed flat. Each face shoots to the beat. To kill this enemy, the player have to destroy all the faces.
- LEVELS-
There are 5 levels in Beat 'Em Down. They are based on a combat arena in true DOOM style. But much more open so that the player does not have to think too much and can focus on the combat with the music.
What we want to achieve with the levels is to promote the dynamism of the game thanks to the player's movement mechanics. For this, the levels consist of wide spaces so that the player can move and fight without colliding with everything. Also, each level has its own music feature.
Moreover, in some levels there are elements that can help the player to move much faster such as jump boosters or portals.
