Project Name: Socratic Smackdown
My Role(s): Product Owner, Designer
Duration: 8 Months
Team Size: 14 Members
Game Engine: Unity
The Game
Do cool combos, use special moves based on philosophy, and even send opponents flying out of bounds in a fun-for-all fight for the next big thought! Socratic Smackdown is an indie platform 2.5D fighter where you play as animalized versions of classic philosophers as they fight for the next big thought. Focused on momentum, positioning, and high-impact decision making, matches revolve around King of the Hill objectives, rewarding both mechanical skill and smart play while maintaining simple enough gameplay for new players to get into the fun.
Early Prototyping
When we had chosen Socratic Smackdown our prototype was barebones and only had the game loop. Establishing the aesthetic was done by the artist through the guiding of myself and another team member as we had pitched the game. I had completed the temporary UI and created update slide decks to present in class showing off progress and getting feedback from both a games professor as well as a professor who used to write for CGM (Computer Games Magazine).
Preproduction: Character Design & Testing
After establishing that characters would be based off of historical philosophers turned into animals I wrote and pitched the character Bearristacles (Plato/Aristocles). Bearristacles was intended to be the heavy character for the game. Apart of this process was designing in a void, with no reference to our games frame data and play speed yet I had to use outside references and test game speeds with our team to figure out our baseline.
Working with the character artist concepts were made for some basic moves and taken to testing to get feedback from testers. During these testing sessions we also worked with the other members of the team to bring gameplay elements, concept and stage art. Through these testing sessions we decided to start development of the game using Sharkrates (Socrates) as he was the most identifiable character/philosopher in the game.
Preproduction: Sharkrates
181 Testers!
14 Testing Sessions!
During the initial design stages of Sharkrates (Socrates) I worked closely with the programmer to establish the core gameplay that the character would exist in and also work as one of the game lead game testing manager. I helped implement changes based on this feedback from testers with the team and continued to iterate on the game.
Much of this time was spent working on animations both keyframing and fully animating. As a designer my role in this process was to prototype move frame data and hit boxes to see what felt good and worked best for the character so that our artists could animate the move as few times as possible.
My personal favorite move I got to work on was the Shield throws. Depending on if Sharkrates (Socrates) was in the air on on the ground he could slam throw his shield forward or slam it into the ground respectively. Sharkrates (Socrates) had no projectiles or zoning tools in his original design which felt off for his character and so making a shield object that could then also be hit to act like a projectile was pitched and implemented. Players seemed to enjoy their ability to use their shield as a ranged attack as well. One problem however was that the shield was used for other moves and so we decided to separate moves into shield and no shield versions. Generally this mean that armor was lost and the move could be interrupted by a single hit instead of two.
Preproduction: Camera Systems
Keeping players on the screen is one of the most important parts of a platform fighter. The cameras tracking system is what maintains this part of the game. Using targeting groups I automatically find the players and then center the camera on the middle point between them allowing the project to scale in player count if we desired.
Selling the impact of hits is another requirement of the camera. To achieve this effect I allow the camera to rotate left and right within a specified amount of degrees sot hat when a player is launched the camera rotates then moves to keep up selling how fast the player got launched in that direction.
In Production Now More To COme Soon!!!
Releasing This May