You Are The Hunted

You Are The Hunted is the capstone project from my senior year at SUNY Canton (2021-2022). The game is based around the concept of The Seven Deadly Sins. The setting is a hotel and each floor represents a different sin. The footage in this video is from the Envy level, where the boss is a large robot V-Tuber. One of the main concepts of the game is that, unlike most other Rogue-likes, the boss is actively hunting the player. There was a lot of hard work and tough decisions made in the process, but I am happy with what we were able to accomplish in the given time.

Overview

The player should be able to encounter the boss at any moment in the level
Feature systems + mechanics that encourage fast-paced gameplay
A loot system that encourages fun builds and experimentation

Goals

Action Rogue-like

Genre:

Engine:

Godot

Dev Time:

~10 Months

Team Size:

Player Scripting (Python)

Collaborated with other teammates to create and improve upon:

Player Movement
Storing and updating info regarding the player’s inventory and stats
Player states and damage

Created a base that allowed for quick and efficient creation of Weapons and items
Programmed weapons and items to spawn with randomized stats based on the type of weapon/item they were
Tiered loot system that would scale stats depending upon the rarity of the gear
The ability for the player to quickly compare their current gear with a similar piece of loot on the ground

Weapons and Items

Participated in brainstorming sessions and discussions regarding game systems

Game Design

Participated in weekly scrums
Helped find issues and evaluate aspects of the game that required attention

Playtesting

Implementation of Art

Helped implement the art teams icons and sprites

HUD, weapon stats, item stats, and Player Inventory screen
Player movement and attacking sprites

Challenges & Solutions

We decided that we wanted the player to be able to attack while moving, however, the way the player was animated they would perform an in place attack animation while moving, causing the player to appear like they are sliding along the floor when attacking.

Challenge 1:

After a conversation with the art team, we determined that we could separate the sprite for the players arms from the rest of their body. This allowed for the player sprite to still play the walking/running animations while the arms simultaneously played the attacking animations.

Solution 1:

Part of our goals for the gameplay was to encourage the player to move fast. That was partially accomplished by having the boss hunt the player throughout the level, but we found that could lead to the player just choosing to run away from the boss for extended periods of time. And while we wanted to encourage fast gameplay and coax the player into fighting the boss, we didn’t want to do anything like locking the player in a room with the boss to force combat.

Challenge 2:

We decided on a simple solution: a timer that would count up the longer the player was in the level. We brainstormed a few ideas for its implementation, but settled on it being a source of positive reinforcement for the player. The quicker the player completed the level, the better rewards they would receive upon completion. Unfortunately, this was never fully implemented into the game as we ran out of time, but I am pretty confident it would have at least aided in solving the challenge we were facing.