Balancing and designing weapons
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So this week began with our beta presentation that went really well and our game was well received by the audience. We noticed that the different weapons had a positive effect. This is something that our group have had in mind throughout the entire production. Our aesthetic goal and our lead word trough the project was feedback and that it feels good to play the game. And the biggest part of that is weapons and how they handle. Since shooting and moving is you to biggest gameplay activities it is something to focus on.
So at the moment we have 4 different weapons, A machinegun, bazooka, shotgun and a sniper. Having only put the hour into the machinegun we now must fix and balance the other weapons so there is a reason for the player to use them.
We started with the bazooka and decided that it should be a nuke, mostly because of the feedback we could give and that it feels very satisfying when you shoot it. So to make it balanced we implemented a cooldown and made it in to a screen wipe. Showing a cooldown on the bazooka icon made it so you have something to look forward to and making the player want to use it.
The Shotgun was changed so it would fit as a secondary or main weapon depending on the players play style. By adding more pellets and having a short range the player must swim close to the enemies to effectively kill them. Making the shotgun a viable option to the main assault rifle. The sniper was the hardest weapon to balance and make interesting. Since our enemies appear all over the screen it was hard to line them up and take the shoot. The current sniper shots don’t stop at the first enemy it hits but penetrates and kills everyone behind it. We solved this by making it a long cooldown weapon, By adding explosive rounds to the sniper we got that sweet feeling when firing the weapon and seeing loads of enemy’s die. To give the feedback when the sniper is ready to use we implemented a laser sight that turns of when you can’t fire the weapon and turns back on when its ready.
Having all the basic ideas it’s now just about balancing and tweaking the weapons so not one is the dominant weapon.
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