Jaina - Beware the daughter of the sea
Jaina: Beware the Daughter of the Sea - Presentation Trailer
Jaina: Beware the Daughter of the Sea - Campaign Walkthrough
Jaina: Beware the Daughter of the Sea - Ordeal Walkthrough
Technical Game Designer - 200 hours project
PITCH
Jaina - Beware the daughter of the sea is a Diablo-like RPG, where the player incarnate Jaina and has to fight his way through tough enemies to retrieve a long lost artifact.
Theme: Jaina Proudmoore - Warcraft
Genre: RPG
Context: Personal project
Target: Hardfun
Number of player: Solo
DEVELOPMENT
Jaina - Beware the daughter of the sea has been made as a personal project within 200 hours.
During a week, in April, Jérémy and I started to create the Game Design's fundation and basic code. In July, Quentin joined us to improve the Game Design and the Level Design, we got together at Jérémy's house and went on developping this project.
Game Design
During this project I worked, with Jérémy and Quentin, on Game Design's issues such as:
- The spells mechanics:
We wanted to make a game where the character could control fire, ice, time, and arcane magic. We agreed on having only 2 spells per "element" to make it easier during the development, knowing that we only had 1 month.
The first thing we did was to define a "Mark" for each element; for example, we wanted the "Arcane element" to do considerable damage but only at one target at a time, so we designed the Mark that way.
- The spells rotation:
Probably the most difficult issue we had to deal with in our project. We had to find a way for the player to utilize 8 different spells without overcharging the inputs ( In the case we would make the game playable on the Xbox or PS controller ) and make it intuitive for everyone.
- The enemies mechanics:
Once we had the character's mechanics, we needed enemies for him to fight. We decided to make 3 types of enemies with distinct mechanics ( Sprint / Jump / Range attack ) that we could change, allowing us to create 4 different versions of each type of enemy.
Programming
Firstly, Jérémy and I worked together on the AI of all enemies, we agreed on using inherited state machine so that we were able to make one AI "brain" and only override the functions we needed for different purpose:
On my side I was in charge of providing scripts such as:
- The wave system:
The game is constituted of a succession of "arena" ( In a Game Design point of view, not an artistic point of view ). The main issue here was to make the code as flexible as possible to able Quentin Pereira to use it in many ways as he wanted. For example, the code needed to allow as many waves of enemies as desired, with as many enemies per wave as desired, and trigger an event at the end, middle, or begining of each wave.
- The "Mark" system:
Each element has his own "Mark," and each "Mark" has a unique mechanics that I was in charge of coding.
I used inherited scripts so that I would be able to create different behavior for each "Mark," depending on which entity it is affected. ( For example, if Jaina were to get affected with an Arcane Mark, its behavior would be different than if it was affected on an enemy )
Here you can find how I coded the Arcane Mark, and how it is displayed in the game:
Particulary for the Arcane Mark, I had to make an excel curve to anticipate and balance the effect of the mark ( You can click on the image to make it bigger):
- The life bar system:
Each enemy needed a life bar above his head ( in 3D ), but we also needed a bigger life bar ( in 2D ) for when the player mouse over said enemy. The main issue was to make the "marks feedback" on the 3D life bar correlate with the "marks feedback" on the 2D life bar when needed.
- Other system for polishing:
Almost half of the production was about "smaller" scripts for feedback, or smaller interaction. For example, the life potion system that some enemies could drop when they die, the wave counter in the "Ordeal," the cinematic event, the "On fight/Off fight" system...
On/Off fight system (You can click on the image to make it bigger)
Cinematic Event
(You can click on the image to make it bigger)
About my teammate, I invite you to go on their website, they will explain what they did on the game far better than I could ever do :
Game Designer
Quentin Pereira
Technical Game Designer
Jérémy Payre
Level Designer
WARNING
Jérémy and I are proud of what we did for Jaina - Beware the daughter of the sea, but we wanted to expand this project by prototyping what the final boss would look like.
If you want to learn more about the development of the final boss you'll find it here:
