Shield Mechanic
Last week we implemented the shield function to our upcoming game. Our player avatar, referred as “Behemoth”, has multiple mechanics and protecting yourself is one of them. The Behemoth has four different placement for its shield. Each placement for the shield has its own key bind to it. Starting from the top of the avatar the key binds are as follows:
Key Input
Shield placement 1: H
Shield placement 2: J
Shield placement 3: K
Shield placement 4: L
Preventing Fire and Killing Enemies
As you can see in the picture below the first placement of the shield is activated (“H”). An active shield lights up the selected placement, with a clear blue color. The inactive shield has a grey color indicating it is not currently in use. The shield prevents enemy fire from the “Shooter”. The shield can also be used as a function to kill incoming “Kamikazes”. Kamikazes main objective are to deal damage to the player by colliding with the Behemoth. If the Kamikaze collides with a shield the enemy is destroyed, and the player will not take any damage. Instead of having a shield function to only prevent enemy fire we also implemented that the shield could be used to destroy a certain kind of enemies. With a shield function that is not only used defensively but also offensively it creates a diverse and a more tactical approach to gameplay.
When activating a shield there is a slight cooldown before you can activate another. This decision was obvious because the aesthetic set for the game was operating heavy machinery. If the player could swap shields in a fast manner the game would be a dull experience. It would also interfere with our aesthetic, we want our protagonist to be slow-moving but powerful.
Upcoming Features
As it is right now the shield activation function is instant when pressing the selected key. In a upcoming sprint we will test if the shield’s key input should be pressed down for a short amount of time in order to activate it. We are also in the talks about having a health condition for the shield or have it activated for a x-amount of time. There needs to be some game testing to be done before we decide on that.
Image: The Behemoth with the top shield activated
Joakim Malmström
Game Design Student
About Joakim Malmström
2017 Game Design
|
