Bonnie & Clyde if they were vampires in a 2-player co-op third person action-adventure game where they use their licks to interact with elements between them.
Excluded from demons and enemies of the humanity, they dropped out the society to defend their love and live as they want.
“Vampires co-op” is a game concept I had in mind for a while so I wanted to prototype it.
I especially love co-op games and I think there’s still a lot to explore upon this genre.
My objective was to make a prototype that
proofs the fun of the concept through 2 phases :
1) Gameplay: 3Cs, core features and co-operation
2) Level-Design: few workshops to add tutorial
and some storytelling
Making a level-design can sound a bit surprising considering my game design profile, but
in the case of this exercise I thought it was particularly important to present since
a 2-player co-op game like It Takes Two is focused a lot on its situations variety.
Estimated Duration: 40 hours
Time Spent: 39 hours
It had been 3 years I didn’t use UE before this prototype. I gave myself a limit of 40 hours to make sure I focus on the essential and to see wat I could do during a “standard” week in a game company. This doesn’t includes coffee breaks though ☕
My inspirations:
I had a clear vision of the project in mind but I really needed to prototype to see if the gameplay works. I knew both players will send each other’s lick to attack any enemy on their path. The tongue would automatically go from a player to the other one, and if they succeed enough licks within the right timing then they will make a special combo attack.
The use of the camera was still very blurry to me : I wanted a third person-camera like in A Way Out to feel closer to the characters, and at the same time I wanted something that is readable and that works with the lick mechanic.
The core gameplay main goal is to set up various cooperative loops
which imply cohesion, communication and complementarity
to defeat obstacles and dangers.
I used the Third Person Camera template and tweaked some values. I had in mind a game with a pretty nervous pace and with a design focused on positionning and timing.
Overall thanks to the template I didn’t spend lots of time on the 3Cs and it’s the result is okay. They are a bit rough but they fit well with the game’s intentions.
This is the core mechanic: characters can quickly lick each other. It goes from a character to the other automatically and it interacts with anything between them. When a player does a lick attack, they have a little moment before the other one can chain a lick behind. Otherwise the tongue comes back to their character. The more they chain theirs licks: the faster they are for destroying enemies or interacting with objects.
This was the trickiest thing to make. I had to find the right way to make it, and find the right signs & feedback to help the players. I first started to work with Splines but I couldn’t have a dynamic tongue easily, so after a few hours without progressing I found the cable component, and it fitted much more to my needs. Through quick iterations I noticed that it would be hard to have what I wanted.
I expected a movement from the left to the right which would take a bit more time to reach the other player, and which would feel more powerful and more like a snake or like Venom’s tongue. Knowing that I couldn’t have this I aimed for a more nervous pace with the tongue showing up directly and I added feedback like the little FX when the characters attack. It could be better but dealing with the time made me try to find creative ways to overcome problems and that was a nice challenge.
After a number of successful chained attacks before their tongue come back to their owners, characters will automatically trigger a combo attack that makes lots of damages to enemies on their way. It pushes players to succeed their combo and coordinate it against the enemies.
The perfect combo is triggered after 8 successful licks chained, but I only realized later that it lacks feedback to know how far is the current combo.
Since the challenges are mostly about positionning and timing, a Dash feature became quickly important. It gives players a way to escape quickly from enemies and a way to give more mobility when players want to align in order to attack.
This feature was pretty classic to make. Adding an FX feedback would have been nice though.
For the AI I really focused on the most important : a cube which makes a simple dash attack towards a player and a simple distance detection to reach the closest player to the enemy. With this behaviour it was already possible to make several combat arenas.
Then I focused on signs & feedback:
Finally, some gamefeel. Bounces, scales, and particle FX: I made something simple as fastest as possible to have a sense of fun when players destroy them.
When both characters finish all the enemies, they can trigger a special cinematic by pressing their trigger button at the same time. I think that split screen cinematics are pretty powerful when it comes to involve 2 characters cooperating, and it was important for me to show that through for the several reasons :
I spent around 3 to 4 hours making it. I tried to keep it really short and I made it at the end.
Finally, let’s have a little reminder at the co-op design typology and
let’s see how our mechanics can belong to these categories:
Licks position
Synchronized navigation
to have the best line attack over enemies
Ultimate co-op attack
Press the trigger button at the same time
Lick Perfect Combo
Cooperative timing in order to trigger the Perfect Combo: it makes more damages and takes advantage over enemies
Multitasking
To achieve multiple tasks, players have to communicate, separate, gather and be organized in order to solve situations
Puzzle solving
Players think and communicate in order to solve puzzle situations
Estimated Duration: 40 hours
Time Spent: 37 hours
The goal was focused on the co-op workshops quality.
I believe the key to a good co-op is to make them communicating,
and for that the workshops have to keep the interest of the players
through symetric and asymetric game situations.
With this in mind, I mostly focused on how both players will use
their mechanics in a fun and co-operative way.
Overall it may be not a very holistic LD, as I really wanted
to focus on the co-op gameplay which is pretty unique.
I started gathering references pretty early in order to have an idea of where I was going. It helped me shaping a consistent experience regarding the level’s pace.
As early as possible I iterated on the workshops and drew the level on paper: it was pretty rough but it gave me a first blockout.
Next part was to work in the engine and progress workshop by workshop.
It’s basically an adventure-bossfight structure. At the beginning of the game, it’s said that the two characters betrayed the demon society so they got cursed. They have to beat up 7 specific forbidden demons in order to gain their freedom.
The number of forbidden demons beat is shown on the vampires’ coffins. This prototype starts with the first boss to fight.
It starts in a subway where the two vampires hide themselves in their own coffins. I wanted the players to feel cramped in this dark and narrowed underground. It’s also a way to start discovering characters’ movements until they join each other at the first sealed doors.
Discovery of the park, pretty ravaged by the fights between humans and demons.
Here the idea is to contrast with the very tight and dark beginning of the level.
It can also be a moment for a dialogue between the characters when they discover the huge tower they have to go to.
I took inspiration from my trip to Washington DC this summer. When I arrived at the train station, I could see the Capitol between trees and I just had to follow this way to it.
Final reward cinematic for the players when they beat the boss on the tower roof. Ideally, just behind there would be a cinematic to show on the coffin that the first boss got defeated.
When the characters see each other for the first time, they have to break the demonic doors sealed by the demons in order to join each other. That’s where they learn the licks mechanic.
Blue player character breaks blue doors, red player character breaks red doors.
This time the sealed doors have numbers: they have to be activated in a specific order (from 1 to 8).
It’s a way to learn how to do a perfect combo (8 quick licks sends).
After joining each other, they cross a corridor and hear some demons making some noises.
They have to fight the demons in order to open the next sealed door. This fight is meant to be pretty easy in order to experiment with the lick mechanic. The demons are spread around the room, it’s up to the players to circle them and beat them up.
This fight is more challengeful and asks players to be pretty mobile.
Also, the boss is only beatable with a perfect combo to force players practicing it.
Following the post-mortem, here’s my analysis and the solutions at the problems the actual prototype has.
– Lick’s cable comprehension: the lick is a “burst” attack, whereas the visuals may show a “continue” attack. Earlier I talked about my struggles on a technical side to solve this issue. Instead of the cable I should have made a sphere going from character attacking – to the other player. It would have been better than seeing the cable staying between both characters.
– Changing camera to 3/4 top: what I noticed later in the process is that it may be difficult to understand the position of the lick between the 2 characters. Also there should be some restrictions like the second character not able to go too far from the first player. Otherwise the readability becomes complicated. A solution to that would be a 3/4 top camera which displays a large camera so it eases players to move around the area.
Bring a better decision-making to fully take advantage of the combat system. The tension is not present yet because players can avoid enemies as they want without any challenge – so right now the solution is too obvious. Core gameplay fantasy relies on positionning and timing aspects which we need to improve to give a meaning to players in the decision they want to take. Let’s see examples of solutions to improve the combat tension:
AI:
Lick mechanic: with deeper design focused on timing, players would feel more tension. For instance choosing to do the Perfect combo would be more gratifying if it’s succeeded but it involves somes risks too (-Difficulty -Longer duration +Higher damages +Stun enemies)
Systems should be also fleshed out:
All of these require a bigger design work and prototype experimentations that I would love to do in the future. For the moment, here’s what I could achieved within a week in a game company.
