Realm Jumpers
Realm Jumpers is a co-op 3rd person animation driven action adventure game with a Magic and Melee combat system. On Realm Jumpers I was lead designer from conceptualization to its current pre-alpha pitching state.
Contributions:
Conceptualized, designed, and prototyped the core game idea and successfully pitched it to investors.
Designed and documented all core systems including co-op, core gameplay, combat, traversal, dynamic mission generation, puzzle, and progression.
Crafted a “Melee and Magic” animation driven third person co-op combat system.
Created four unique playable characters with a customizable ability slot system to appeal to a wide range of playstyles with an emphasis on co-op synergies and interactions.
Developed normal, mini-boss, and boss enemies from concept to implementation that offer a variety of challenges for a scaling 2-4 player combat.
Prototyped many features including hero abilities, enemy abilities, enemy AI, traversal mechanics, and puzzle mechanics.
Led cross-disciplinary teams to develop our features including designers, programmers, animators, concept artists, character artists, environment artists, VFX artists, and sound designers.
Led project and milestone planning and ran weekly internal playtests vital for iterating on a co-op experience.
This video shows pre-alpha combat footage. We recorded with player chat to show off co-op mechanics.
(There are more enemies and mechanics I cannot show due to NDA’s)
In this Video:
4 Player Co-op Combat footage
Mini-boss enemy called an Elite Fractured
Four unique playable characters with abilities
Co-Op team up mechanic: Boost Attack
Battle arena that evolves into a puzzle room after combat
Overview
Realm Jumpers Overview:
2-4 Player Mission Based Co-Op.
Asymmetrical Combat of humans vs horrors
Tense animation driven Magic & Melee combat system
Customizable hero kits for a wide variety of player types.
Procedural mission generation for high replayability.
Puzzle and Exploration to balance moments of combat.
Feature Highlights On This Page:
Core Combat Systems
Enemies
Player Character Hero Kits
(Not included is traversal, exploration, progression, and exploration systems)
Core Combat Systems
Combat Direction: Humans vs Horrors
I designed the combat of Realm Jumpers to tap into our themes of pulp adventure and cosmic horror to make a combat system that appealed to core co-op players and could scale with post-release content.
In Realm Jumpers, players are humans with newly discovered powers going toe-to-claw against monstrous horrors from another realm of existence in a Magic & Melee combat.
Melee Combat system pushes players to face their fears and fight the enemies up close.
Enemies are bigger and stronger than the players. They own the space and knock players around.
Players must outsmart enemies with tactical abilities and co-op coordination.
A player dodges ranged attacks from a Beacon Guardian
Animation Driven Combat
I chose an animation driven combat system for our game for two reasons: it stood out in a shooter dominated co-op space and would add a weighty tension that players felt with each swing of the enemy. I also just really like those combat systems.
To execute on animation driven combat I designed a stagger system and a knockback system. I and the other designers than managed all of our attacks and abilities through animation montages in Unreal 5
Stagger System
I designed the stagger system to give players tools to interact with enemies while they make their big expressive attacks and consequences if they over commit to their own actions. The system works as follows:
Attacks and abilities deal normal damage and stagger damage.
All characters have a flinch and stun meter. When they take stagger damage, the meters fill up. When the flinch or stun meter fill up they trigger a flinch or stun efffect.
Flinches are a quick interrupt. They stop the current action and trigger a quick full body hit animation.
Stuns are an earned window of opportunity. They leave the target vulnerable for an extended periods of time.
How we applied and balanced stagger damage helped shape dynamics in combat. Larger enemies are immune to flinch making them own the pacing of combat. Smaller enemies can easily be flinched but are designed to fight in greater numbers making target focus a priority for players.
Above: Player deals enough stagger damage to flinch the enemy during their attack
Below: Player deals enough damage to stun the enemy mid fight opening up the opportunity to break their armor.
Knockback
Knockback was one of the first systems I had us add to our combat to add what I call a “kinetic energy” to combat. Movement and displacement always inherently feels more exciting, dramatic, and powerful than anything with “potential energy” like stat based systems under the hood. Also players getting thrown around really pushes the Humans vs Horrors themes.
We could apply knockback effects to anything but most commonly to melee attacks and abilities.
When a combatant is knocked back, their action is interrupted, they play a dramatic animation, and they slide away from the source.
Knockback was mostly used by our larger enemies against players to make their attacks really feel like they hit hard. We also gave knocback features to our more bruiser characters to engage and control smaller enemies.
A Player getting knocked back by an Elite Fractured’s attack.
Animation Montages
With animations being central to an animation driven combat, the design team worked inside of Unreal’s animation montages to tweak everything including timings, damage volume frames, VFX/SFX hookup and timing, and player combo window data.
We also used Unreal’s Gameplay Ability System (GAS) to handle the abilities. We paired these with animation montages via a custom animation notifies to control timing and functionality as needed.
Example animation montage from the Elite Fractured’s attack combo
Combat Metrics
On the project I developed easy to use combat metrics to help design collaborate with animation as well as add a balanced consistency to our melee attacks. First I constructed a gym inside of Unreal so we could see our metrics in action. Using our prototype enemy and animations I showcased:
Reach - the maximum distance an attack may hit the target from the edge of their capsule collider
Forward Movement - How much the character is displaced during the attack.
Attack Wind-up - How long the attack tell is.
Attack Duration - How long the attack takes to execute (aka the attack.
Attack Cooldown - The recovery time of the attack.
Once captured, I abstracted the data into ranges such as short and long to give the team a shared terminology. We then made profiles for our players and different types of enemies to help visualize their differences and give jumping off points when timing out their attacks. The differences included:
Players have shorter attacks on average to have a responsive game feel.
Enemies had longer wind-ups because players need time to react to enemy attacks.
To balance the longer wind-ups we gave enemies longer reach and forward movement on average. This gave them more time to perform their attacks so they weren’t sitting ducks.
Above: Screenshot from the metrics gym.
Below: Sample metric range profile for the average player character
Enemy Design
Enemy Direction
For our enemies I had two major goals: Replayability and Co-Op
To hit replayability we knew we needed a variety of enemies as well different ways to mix and match the enemies. In addition to dynamic level and encounter systems I knew we needed different categories of enemies:
Grunts - simple enemies that don’t pose a threat individually but add pressure in numbers or with other enemies. Also good for adding bits of combat to non-combat areas like puzzle and traversal sections.
Normal Enemies - Enemies that add something specific to a fight and are meant to be mixed and matched with grunts and other normal enemies to create combat variety. These could be sniper enemies or summoners.
Mini-boss - These are bigger enemies that define a fight. They have a more robust move set and tend to be physically bigger. These can be stand alone or supported by grunts and normal enemies.
Massive Boss - These are big capstone boss fights that focus on one physically massive enemy with an in depth moveset that evolves through phases.
A line up of the enemies in our pre-Alpha Build. From Left to Right.
We designed all of our enemies with our four person co-op in mind. Melee action and Co-op create some challenges for our enemies such as enemies getting swarmed by players or enemies not being able to threaten multiple players. This was particularly true for our mini-boss and massive enemies because they would often be fighting in a 1v4 scenario. To counteract this we…
Gave enemies sweeping attacks or AoE attacks so they can threaten more than one player at a time.
Gap closers and plenty of root motion to their melee so enemies can cover a lot of ground and get between targets more quickly.
Reactionary reset abilities that either dramatically reposition the enemy or force players to flee for when a player gets swarmed.
Larger enemies were immune to flinch so that players couldn’t stun lock them and they could own the fight. This also helped sell the “Humans vs Horrors” direction.
Arial view of the elite fractured using an area clearing AoE
Enemy Behaviors
We used Unreal’s behavior tree tool to create our enemy AI. We had a hands-on design approach and I would often prototype a first pass of some of enemies’ behavior trees. We would then work directly with our AI programmer to iterate on the behavior tree and create new tech to expand the AI’s functionality. We would also help debug and tweak values inside the tree to balance the experience.
I also prototyped and worked with the AI engineer to develop new enemy AI Features such as a “Turn to Target” which allowed enemies to turn towards their target during the attack animations within a designer-specified window. This gave the enemy a “stickiness” that made them feel more aggressive and competent.
Sample Enemy - Elite Fractured
The Elite Fractured is a powerful, hulking foe who is designed to pressure multiple players at once in a tense 1v4 combat experience. To accomplish this we gave them...
Large sweeping melee attacks and AoE abilities to threaten multiple players at once
Lots of gap closers and forward movement in their attacks to close in on targets and cover ground.
Immunity to flinch so that they felt like an unstoppable force.
Knockback on all their attacks to create a space and add a lot of kinetic movement as players fly around and as the Elite Fractured closes gaps to follow up.
Invulnerable to damage until players perform a co-op boost attack to break their armor during their stun state.
Elite Fractured combat footage - repeated from the top of the page
Moveset:
Wide Horizontal Slash
The Elite Fractured swings their heavy sword in a wide arc.
The attack has just over a 180 degree arc coverage.
This attack triggers when players are grouped up to threaten multiple players at once.
Also helps clear players as they gang up on the Elite Fractured which is a problem in co-op melee games.
Whirlwind
The Elite Fractured wildly swings their sword as they spin and move.
This attack is used to regain control of the fight.
Creates distance while also threatening players.
Triggers when the Elite Fractured is getting swarmed.
Energy Blast AoE
The Elite Fractured charges their stone and strikes it in the ground creating a massive AoE energy blast.
Elite Fractured uses this to completely reset the fight.
Has a long tell to give players ample time to get out of the way of the large AoE.
Also meant to be a powerful and impressive move to make the Elite Fracture feel magical and intimidating. Also used to open the fight as an intro animation.
Sword Drag
The elite fractured rushes an enemy dragging their sword along the ground to perform a powerful uppercut.
The Elite Fractured uses this as their main gap closer and engagement tool.
The sword drag is set up to loop to handle the variable travel distances when used.
Triggers when they switch targets and are at least a minimum distance away
Overhead Swing
A powerful downward strike with an AoE at the impact point.
This attack is purposefully easy to avoid giving players a window to counter attack.
Has a long tell and a long recovery to allow players to dodge and follow up on their attacks.
3-Hit Combo
The Elite Fractured performs a three hit combo with wide slashing attacks.
This is their most formidable attack with the tightest tells and successive attacks to put players on the defensive.
The Elite Fractured reassess and retargets after each attack so that they can threaten multiple players with the same combo.
Has a chance to add on an Overhead Swing to the end of the combo to increase the unpredictability.
Hero Design
Hero Direction
Conceptually I designed our player character systems to appeal to the co-op market by having…
Having fully realized characters with complimentary gameplay mechanics so that players can choose their favorite and have a “main”.
A wide variety of playstyles so that all different types of players could come together and enjoy a co-op experience.
Customizable kits so players could tinker and find an ideal build and allow play groups to strategize and create roles that compliment each other.
Mechanically I had the follow direction for the player characters…
A simple and approachable core kit with slight variations between characters. This included a melee combo, ranged attack, and dodge roll.
Unique character abilities that punctuate the characters’ effect so that they have stand out moments in combat that their teammates can appreciate.
Dodge as the main defensive tool so that players were motivated to move and felt on the back foot when facing off against the larger and stronger enemies.
Hero Line-up Concept art from our pitch deck.
Process - Character Identity
Character design started with concept’s exploration of the characters. Design gave them loose buckets of gameplay archetypes to explore. I worked closely with concepting to give them feedback for gameplay direction such as equipment, weapon types, and making sure they read as the broad gameplay targets we had set.
We then assign each character two “Classes” which are evocative titles that speak to their gameplay in broad terms. We created our buckets of classes by researching other games with strong character differentiation like League of Legends and Dota.
From there we assign stats for our different categories and give the character strengths and weaknesses. These are all intended to be communicated to players to help them understand the character at a glance. It also helps us compare and contrast our characters as we design them. The stats are between 0 and 3 and are…
Durable: How much health and defensive abilities the character has.
Stagger: How much stagger damage the character can output.
Ideal Range: What is the ideal engagement/formation range for characters. (0 being melee and 3 being ranged)
AoE: Effectiveness against groups of enemies.
Mobility: How quickly can the character move around the battlefield. Good for engaging and getting to key enemies/objectives
Utility: A catch all for tactical effectiveness. Covers support abilities and displacing / controlling enemies.
Damage Focus: All characters deal damage but this is how much their priority is DPS output.
Max Complexity: Complexity level for players to help decide how intricate or complicated they want their experience.
Process - Character Kits & Abilities
Once we had the direction set for a character, we would start to design their kit in detail. Characters had two different playstyles unique to each hero but I also wanted to empower players to explore different builds, strategize builds for harder missions, and find a playstyle that fit for them.
To accomplish this I let players mix and match the active and passive abilities of the character kit. As the character levels up their characters they would unlock more abilities to play with. In targeting a horizontal progression that gives players options instead of a vertical progression we prevent huge gaps between friends who have different leveled characters who want to play together.
My target for our hero characters was a heuristic I learned from my work on Agents of Mayhem. The sweet spot for number of builds is two-and-a-half. We would design abilities for each of the classes of the character and then design 1-2 abilities that would bridge the two classes. This allowed builds to fully commit to one class or make any combination of hybrid classes.
Screenshot of our character kit customization screen.
Character Sample - Nyima
Nyima is our proof of concept for our player characters. Her two builds are “Duelist” and “Manipulator” and her high mobility and “Marking” passive combines the two. She is a high mastery and technical character who gains advantage from tactical decisions and sequencing of her abilities interlaced with her attacks. The sum of her kit is greater than its individual parts.
Duelist: Nyima is a proficient, and disciplined fighters who gains the upper hand in combat by “outplaying” her opponents. Her abilities let her zip through combat or dodge and counter enemy attacks
Manipulator: Nyima uses her “tether magic” to pull enemies or herself around the battlefield to maximize positioning and set up combos with her other abilities or her allies.
Marking Passive: Nyima can mark an enemy with her ranged attack and abilities. When Nyima hits a marked target with her melee attacks the mark is consumed and she deals bonus damage.
The Marking Passive is designed to pull all elements of the kit together and really reward mastery of the abilities and sequencing:
Enemies can only have one mark at a time so it does not benefit the player to use abilities back to back. This encourages intricate sequencing between her abilities and melee attacks.
Her abilities are high in utility so the mark rewards players who tactically use them with damage.
Nyima has some AoE capability allowing her to mark several enemies at once. This encourages her to switch targets and move around the battlefield thus fulfilling the duelist fantasy as she is a whirlwind of blades dancing around her enemies.
Her ranged attacks marking enemies gives her weak and slow ranged attack a utility inside of her melee focused kit.
Pre-Alpha combat Nyima combat footage.
Duelist Abilities:
Flourishing Whirlwind
Nyima Swings her energy rope around her in a big aoe attack, dealing damage to nearby enemies and marking them.
Side Dodge
Nyima dodges to the side, in place, gaining iFrames for a short duration. If activated again, Nyima transitions into a big counter hit that marks the target but increases the cooldown of the ability.
Manipulator Abilities:
Essence Pull
Nyima controls enemies positions and ranges in the battle field by pulling enemies together, pulling them to her, and pulling herself to enemies. Great for getting her right into the melee combat or isolating enemies for her high single target damage.
Pull to Center
In Pull to Center, Nyima fires out a projectile of her tether energy at an enemy. When it hits the enemy, tethers shoot out to nearby enemies and yanking them towards the original target.
This groups her enemies to for combos with other players and to group them up for her melee attacks.
Hybrid Ability:
Combat Vault
Nyima does a quick slide forward gaining iFrames. If the player holds down the button and collides with an enemy, Nyima kicks off of them making distance and knocking back the target, dealing damage and marking them.
