Maher Fawaz - Eternal Winter

A third-person action-adventure game set on a Nordic Mountain, developed in Unreal Engine 5 by a team of 11 people in 4 months.

Role: Lead Designer

Available on itch

Design Documentation

Figma Wireframes

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Eternal Winter is a third-person action-adventure game inspired by games like God of War and Tomb Raider. As the lead designer, I worked on the gameplay, including the design of the player and enemies, and coordinated with other designers, programmers, and artists. These designs were tweaked and iterated upon based on internal and external feedback.

ENEMIES

The enemies that the player face up against are draugrs, undead skeletons based in Nordic mythology. There are three types in the game: light, heavy, and archer. Each type encourages the player to use different attacks to take out each of them in the most efficient way possible.

Light draugrs are easy to stagger and have decent health, though they are more dangerous in bunches.

Heavy draugrs can only be staggered with a heavy attack and have more health.

Archer draugrs can attack you from range and can be quickly dispersed by a fireball.

I communicated with programmers to have the player controller and enemies implemented and was flexible on any issues that came up. I utilized flowcharts to communicate AI behaviors to programmers.

These flowcharts were made for each enemy that appears in the game in order to communicate their behaviors to our programmers.

Their behaviors are based on that of the Kung-Fu Circle, in which there is an enemy manager in place that ensures a limited number of enemies will attack the player at once, to ensure that the player isn't overwhelmed.

Originally, we had planned to scale up the total amount of enemies that could attack the player at once as they progressed through the game, though this was cut due to time.

As our level came together, I worked on placing down enemies throughout. Challenges with enemy placement included considering what worked in what parts of the level, as well as figuring out a good pace to onboard the player within the space that we had to work with. As the level progresses, additional enemy types are introduced, and the difficulty of fights increases.

PLAYER

I designed the player's attacks with the intention of having a variety of options that each serve its own purpose in combat. A major highlight of the player's move set is the use of fire magic. In addition to a basic fireball attack, the player can obtain upgrades to their existing attacks that infuse fire magic into them. These upgrades are part of a basic skill tree that the player is rewarded points for from exploration of the level.

The player has a basic, light, and quick slash attack, with a basic combo that can be performed by repeatedly pressing the button for it. Its upgrade allows for enemies to be set on fire, inflicting a burn effect.

The player also has a heavy slam attack, that is a bit slower to use but deals more damage and can stagger heavy draugrs. Its upgrade creates a tornado of fire that hurts enemies.

An area of effect attack is also available in the form of a spin, dealing low damage to all enemies around them. Its upgrade shoots out multiple fireballs around the player.

This flowchart is for the companion wisp that the player has. It specifically details out how it should function in combat. It considers a couple of factors to decide which enemy to target, based on distance and enemy strength. It then stuns the enemy for a specified period of time.

UI

In addition, I designed UI for the game. I coordinated with our 2D artist and a programmer to complete initial implementation of these, with further iteration completed by me. These adjustments included setting up the backdrop for the main menu, improving navigation by allowing the user to exit menus with escape, and moving the position of in-game elements based on feedback.

This was my second project working in Unreal, and I got some more experience out of working with blueprints and worked a little with animation triggers and skeleton sockets for the first time. Our team had a clear vision of the game we wanted to make from the start. Towards the end, a lot of quick iterations were done on gameplay that required all hands-on deck. I learned how valuable it can be to raise prolonged issues with the whole team sooner than later, as such issues can be resolved much quicker. I look forward to taking these lessons into future projects.

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