Andrew Naimou | Current Project

Game Design

Etheral is a solo ARPG project that aims to be inclusive for those with limited time, while delivering an engaging narrative and tight combat experience for all. Slated for a late 2024 release.

Core Game Loop

Etharals Core Game Loop is expressed through story → combat → story resolution(s) & progression → character leveling → repeat

Combat

Combat design in Etheral draws inspiration from the impactful feel of God of War (2018/2022) and the precise controls of Hades. Favoring mechanic over stat-based combat, players are offered a selection of succinct abilities to engage with against limited yet distinctive set of enemies. This approach aims to provide a more strategic and immersive combat experience.

Narrative

Narrative design revolves around dynamic and captivating characters, each with unique backgrounds. Through branching dialogue, players influence event outcomes without deviating from the overarching plot. This non-linear approach provides players with agency, crafting an immersive experience where their choices shape the narrative.

World

Etheral's tone and aesthetics take cues from A Song of Ice & Fire and The Witcher - a harsh, morally grey world, but with redeeming qualities, hope, and at times, punctured by humor.

Environmental

Realistic-ish environments aim to be mood heavy - detailed scenery, environmental sounds, strong emphasis on music, and rich ambience - to support the tone of the overall game, as well as from scene-to-scene. Environments aim to communicate a sense of depth by making use of multi-leveled terrains. Players will have 360° camera control to better experience the world.

Combat Mechanics

Player movement and combat are responsive and fluid, and is best experienced with a game controller. Enemies will employ different types of attacks, including entry, counter, and special attacks. Behavior states includes idle, patrol, chase, attacking, retreat, heal, and swarm.

Player

Basic Attacks

Basic attacks include a combo chain, with later attacks adding additional benefits, shield bash to knock enemies down, and a sprint attack for a strong opening attack.

Executions

After some leveling, the player can execute some enemies with low health and also perform ground executions for knocked down enemies.

Special Abilities

Special Abilities are cooldown based and achieved through leveling.

Lock On System

Locking On occurs when an enemy is within distance and forward angle range, and the player either enters Defensive Movement, or performs certain attacks.

Defensive Actions

When in Defensive Mode, player will Shield/Weapon block incoming attacks (if Defense meter isn't exhausted), and perform a dodge/roll (invulnerable for a number of frames).

Enemy

Entry Attack

Many enemies will have distinct opening attacks that differ from their basic or special attacks.

Counter Attacks

Many enemies will have a variety of counter attacks or actions which the player will have to consider when attacking.

Strafe

Some enemies will defend and attack while strafing around the player, offering more variability in combat.

Development

Etheral is developed in Unity and C#. Majority of systems are programmed and designed by me (and Google - thank you Google), with a few exceptions detailed below.

Designer Focused Architecture

The project leans on Scriptable Objects, custom inspectors, and custom tools to reduce design friction and be more efficient while iterating. Additionally, I developed a Narrative Node Editor which offers a visual platform to manage story, dialogue, quests, and events throughout the game. Each graph is saved as a Scriptable Object, allowing the data to be easily portable and organized.

Flexible Finite State Machine

Player, Enemy, and NPC characters are all driven through a flexible, custom FSM. Every action and movement type is a specific state for all characters, making it easy to confine behaviors within each state. I designed the FSM to be easily extensible when adding new characters with unique requirements, such as Bosses.

Custom Developed Systems

Other systems developed for Etheral include: Combat, Player Controller, Weapon Inventory, Cinematic, See-through System (so certain objects do not obstruct player), Destructibles, Audio, In-Scene Dialogue, Interactions, Event, Save, and Scene/Level Management.

Custom Dev Tools

A variety of custom tools were created to perform batch operations, as well as a Systems Design Node Editor to create Systems Diagrams. These include a Prefab Variant tool to create variants in bulk, Material Editor Tool to duplicate, modify, and replace Materials in scene in bulk, and a Shader Changer tool to replace shaders in bulk with a specified shader.

Integrated 3rd Party Systems

For maintainability, 3rd party assets were kept limited. Three 3rd party gameplay assets are used: RayFire for real-time Mesh destruction (integrated with custom Destructibles system), Pixel Crusher Quest and Dialogue System, integrated with custom Event System, and MoreMountains Feel, integrated throughout custom Combat and Cinematics System to provide controller and screen feedback.

Development Brief

Some visual examples of the Tools and Systems I have developed for Etheral

Tools/Systems Gallery

Narrative Node Editor

Help support Narrative Design Management within Unity Editor

Custom Inspectors

Heavily utilized for Characters, Weapons, Audio Libraries, etc.

Cinematics System - High Level Diagram

Uses "Virtual Actors" to dynamically load in-game character models into Timeline cinematics.

Prefab Iterator

Used to batch create Prefab Variants. Originally created while making a large number of destructibles.

Systems Node Editor

Used to create System Diagrams for documentation within the Unity Engine. Comprehensive documentation is performed in an ADO Wiki.

Material Tool

Created to replace all materials that required Transparency. Can be extended based on future requirements.