Slime Heroes

LEVELS

SOFTWARE:

Unreal Engine 4 | Blueprints | Maya

JOB TITLE:
Level, Narrative, & Combat Designer
TEAM SIZE: 7
DURATION: 2 Years

A tale where slimes are actually the heroes. Play together with your friends as adorable slimes - the only creature that can save the world from a mysterious corruption. Find different weapons and dynamically create your own magical abilities to express the way you want to adventure.

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NARRRATIVE

Slime Heroes Narrative Design covers NPC Dialogue, UI Descriptions, Cinematic Scripting, and localization. My job was building these systems and maintaining CSV localization.

NPC Dialogue

My main focuses are which NPC is talking, their role in the story, and the length of their lines.
NPC Line length is vital to ensure dialogue does not run off the screen or bore the player—line length changes based on the number of words or different language fonts.
I solved this by adding an adjustable text box and a word cap.
The Dialogue System also considers Player Progression to ensure it presents the correct conversation.
NPC conversations change based on which Quest, Dungeons, and Bosses the Player has completed.

MOST INTERSTING CHANGES

This level's original design (Picture 2) suffered from a lack of events, pathing constraints, and purpose.
From our game's narrative, it was a level meant to train the player to fight the next boss.
I started by first creating a Platou a the top of the center mountain. This served many purposes, such as creating an open area for the Final event, creating the "completing your training" narrative beat, and giving the player a visible goal to strive for.
Next, I hollowed out the center mountain and added passageways. With this change, players reported being able to move across the map more quickly and effectively than before.
Finally, I added new environment locations and props, including large oak trees and sand dunes. This separated the levels' design from the original "Alpha 01" level.

LEVELS

Slime Heroes levels are divided into World Levels, Puzzle-Dungeons, and Boss Rooms. I am in charge of building World Levels and Puzzle Dungeons. World Levels allow players to defeat enemies, collect new skills, and take on bosses. Puzzle Dungeon serves as a challenging introduction to the player's newfound abilities.

FIRE BIOME CONSTRUCTION

The Fire Biome is the most volatile biome in Slime Heroes and represents strength overall. The world design, enemy placements, and environmental hazards reflect that.
The Fire Biome is built with verticle elevation so the player feels like their skill level is elevating with each floor cleared.
In this biome, I introduced homing projectile and powerful melee enemies to challenge the player to adapt to both close and range combat.
The lava river and fire geyser hazards test the players' reactive and peripheral skills while in combat.

SNOW BIOME CONSTRUCTION

Unlike other Biomes, The Tundra Biome challenges the player with a receives a retrieval quest to enter the boss room.
This encourages the player to take a slower approach and explore every corner of the map and
The Blizzard Maze focuses on the player's memory and exploration skills. Players must find all of the fire cauldrons and light them to escape.
I introduced grapple points and pressure plates to give the player a more applicable use of their skills outside of combat.

FUNCTIONALITY

Slime Heroes Functionality focused on the Player Skills, Enemy abilities, and environment mechanics. My role throughout development was to help build these mechanics in UE Blueprints and maintain a spreadsheet of all abilities in the game. Enemies have unique abilities attributed to their fighting style. Players acquire these skills by defeating new enemies. Players also combine 2 skill to make a unique, more potent skill.

SKILL CONSTRUCTION

When constructing Skills, I had a checklist of variables they had to run through. This list included the skills' owner (Player or Enemy), the skills' lifetime, the Skills' damage amount and type, and the skills' spawned actors.
Each skill needed to be unique and applicable to multiple situations in the game. I spent time testing these skills to ensure there was very little overlap in capabilities. I also ran multiple runs with a set amount of skills.
For multiplayer, I ensured each skill was replicated on both the "Host" and the "Client." I also fixed bugs where skills couldn't determine their owner between the "Host" and the "Client."

Skill COMBO CONSTRUCTION

Skill Combos took a good amount of scripting to work. For Skill Combinations, we had a Primary Skill and a Secondary Skill. The primary skill would be the main actor the player sees, while the secondary skill augments it in some way.
Example (Slide 1): "Attack Buff (AB) + Barrier." AB is the primary skill, while the Barrier is the secondary skill. AB creates an aura that increases player weapon attacks. The Barrier Skill adds an additional effect that creates a cage around that aura. Now Enemies cannot escape the aura's effects, and players do extra damage when knocking them into the barrier.
We had a total of 18 Skills and 324 combinations. My job was to test each of these combinations and make sure they felt unique.

BOSS SKILL CONSTRUCTION

Boss Skills allows the player to use one of the defeated boss's most prominent abilities. Players aquire these skills by defeating boss dungeons.
I created 4 of the boss skills. When creating them, I wanted these skills to have the same impact, range, and weight as the boss they come from. I focused on making their impact range twice as large as regular skills and their duration last twice as long.
I designed some skills with "Sure Hit" Effects, like the Swamp Boss's "Hand Minions" Skill, while others came with Environmental Effects, like the Ice Boss's "Ice Storm" and Fire Boss's "Lava Arena" Skill. This was intended to make the player feel as powerful as the bosses they defeated.
Another thing I added was a quick animation of the player turning into a slime version of the boss before the skill started. This was to really emphasize that the player was channeling the boss's power.
With these design principles, our playtest reported players excited to take on Boss Dungeons to see what new Boss Skill they would acquire.

ENEMY CONSTRUCTION

Enemy AIs are constructed with a set amount of Hit Points, Attacks, and Animations. When the enemy detects a player character, they choose one of their attacks at random, based on the player's distance, and play through an animation to perform that attack.
My Job was to create these attacks by setting up their animations, event triggers, and their ObjectTrace Functions in Unreal Blueprints. (Slide 2)
I went into Enemies animations and added "Event Trigger Notifies" at exact points during the animation (Slide 3). These Notifies checked whether players were within the enemy attack Hitbox. If true, the Enemy damaged the player. (Slide 4)

Skill Combos took a good amount of scripting to work. For Skill Combinations, we had a Primary Skill and a Secondary Skill. The primary skill would be the main actor the player sees, while the secondary skill augments it in some way.
Example (Slide 1): "Attack Buff (AB) + Barrier." AB is the primary skill, while the Barrier is the secondary skill. AB creates an aura that increases player weapon attacks. The Barrier Skill adds an additional effect that creates a cage around that aura. Now Enemies cannot escape the aura's effects, and players do extra damage when knocking them into the barrier.
We had a total of 18 Skills and 324 combinations. My job was to test each of these combinations and make sure they felt unique.