— ROLE
Gameplay and Systems Engineer
Level Designer
— DEVELOPMENT TIME
15 Weeks
— TEAM SIZE
10
— ENGINE
Unity
ChromaKill is a is a first person movement shooter where the player uses color powers to run faster and complete levels. Play as the Chromakeeper trying to restore color to a greyscale world, and approach each level with a new perspective by customizing your movement kit every attempt.
Awarded Best Gameplay at the MSU Spring 2024 Games Showcase.
My Roles and Responsibilities:
- Designed a customizable weapon system for designers to create new weapons easily.
- Created a unique level and iterated on its design to be in the final product.
- Programmed all enemy AI behavior.
- Implemented an online leaderboard using Unity Cloud Services.
- Collaborated with artists to help implement UI, 3D models and animations.
WEAPON EDITOR
Early in development, we envisioned the game to have many levels, with several of the levels having different weapons. With this in mind, I wanted to create a system where weapons could be edited very easily, since a weapon’s functionality can greatly alter how a certain level is played.
The first thing to consider was how a weapon were to be used. We knew that 1. we wanted not just guns, but also swords in the game, and 2. enemies would be attacking the player. So, the system should allow any object with an association to a weapon to be able to attack with it.
HOW IT WORKS
A Gun has a reference to a few things. The first is its gun data. The gun data is a scriptable object that tells the weapon all of the unique variables about it, such as the fire rate, whether it shoots semi-automatic, automatic, or burst, how far the attack goes, etc. It also needs a reference to the bullet prefab. A bullet or projectile is an object that is created by the gun every time it is shot. The gun gives the bullet direction and velocity vectors so that it can travel in the direction that the muzzle is facing. The muzzle is simply a transform that is placed in front of the gun.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
Creating and editing new weapons became incredibly simple. This allowed designers to quickly tweak values in the even while playing the game in-editor. It also allowed designers to create or swap guns in 30 seconds or less, allowing for more efficient development. The weapon system was also used on the two enemy types in the game, which mitigated redundant code.