Andrés Alarcón
Combat\Gameplay Designer
MAXIMUM STRIKE
Overview
Maximum Strike is a classic 2D fighting game, set in a dystopic future. Fight for your life in this retro-looking fighting game. Use one of the two cast members, the feisty and fast Riot or the slow, but overwhelming Atlas.
This game was made with Unity3D 2020.4 version, over 1 year in a team consisting of a 2D Artist and me.
My focus areas were combat design, coding, game feel, and UI.
Combat design
Characters were designed to feel and act very differently from stats to attacks and way of playing. Our objective was to create a slow-moving wall with set-up play with Atlas and a fast-moving and aggressive character with Riot.
We also wanted to create an aggressive game with a high emphasis on spacing. For that reason, we added a lot of shield stun to block and added a
shield break animation for hard punishes.
We also added a parry system. So players can punish approaches from the enemy.
Game feel
We approached game feel through animation, sound, particles, animation skips, and hitstun.
In order to achieve a good game feel we added bigger wind-ups to hard-hitting moves.
We also added smears (lines of movement) that help provide a visual indicator of the active hitbox of the attack and give a bigger impact on the animation.
We also added real-time effects depending on the strength of the attack (light, medium, heavy) and a moving line effect to show where the rival is gonna be launched.
Is also worth noting the strength in which enemies are launched and if there was knockout (And then bounce in the floor) help to convey your strongest attacks.
Sound also played a big factor in the game feel of the attacks as higher damaging moves have stronger and more deep sounds.
Hitstun was added to give weight to the attacks. Supers are an example of high levels of hitstun. In the next gif, we provide a case of a high hitstun move (The effect is exaggerated here for visibility purposes).
One key note is that both particles and enemy characters move even in the stopped frames of the game. This keeps the game dynamic even in the frozen frames.
Finally, animation cancel was added to smoother up transition between attacks enabling dealing combos more easily.
Approach on character design
Atlas as a heavy set-up character has slow and big normals. His main strengths are big range attacks, a lot of damage which compensates with slow attacks. He also has 2 moves with moving properties that can use to escape overwhelming pressure or approaches as an aggressive option.
Atlas' main gimmick are his floating traps. These traps explode in contact with the floor, walls, or when he uses his special attack. These balls can be moved with any attack of Atlas for long-range pressure.
Atlas' super consists of a close-quarters attack that deals a lot of damage and resets a neutral combat position by throwing his enemies. Throwing a galaxy fit perfectly as a powerful character.