Projects

Overview

Spider-Noir Souls-Like is a captivating RPG that immerses players in the world of the brooding webslinger, Spider-Noir. Drawing inspiration from the acclaimed Arkham Series, development began in the summer of 2023 with a singular goal—to craft a game that seamlessly blends intricate stealth mechanics with a hauntingly atmospheric world.

Spider-Noir, an established character from the Marvel universe known for his noir-inspired backdrop reminiscent of Batman's universe, emerged as the perfect protagonist to anchor this immersive experience. Recognizing the rich narrative and thematic potential inherent in Spider-Noir's universe, I decided to build this project around him.

However, realizing that a compelling game requires more than just stealth mechanics, I opted to inject a unique twist by incorporating elements from the challenging souls-like genre into the combat system.

This fusion of disparate gameplay elements promises an engrossing and distinctive experience, where players must navigate the shadows with cunning stealth while facing off against formidable foes in intense, unforgiving combat encounters. Spider-Noir Souls-Like offers a fresh take on familiar mechanics, inviting players to embark on a journey unlike any other.

Conceptual Vision

From the inception of my game development project, I harbored a clear vision—a game that seamlessly merges the stealth mechanics of the acclaimed Arkham Series with the gritty atmosphere of a dark, unforgiving world. Thus, the concept of Spider-Noir was chosen as the centerpiece. This enigmatic character and his shadowy realm embody the very essence of what I aimed to achieve-a narrative steeped in grimness and brutality.

With Spider-Noir's universe meticulously crafted, I sought to elevate the gameplay beyond the confines of conventional superhero or stealth titles. Drawing inspiration from the punishing combat of the Dark Souls franchise, I envisioned a game where every encounter is fraught with tension and consequence.

By infusing these influences, I set out to create an experience that transcends the boundaries of familiar gaming tropes. Spider-Noir Souls-Like represents a bold departure from the norm—a fusion of stealth, darkness, and relentless combat that promises to challenge and captivate players in equal measure.

Development #1 - Climbing

The journey of this game's development began with a simple capsule placed in the scene, serving as the canvas upon which the foundation of gameplay mechanics would be built. Choosing a rigidbody for player movement proved to be a versatile choice, leveraging its physics capabilities for seamless control.

Central to the game's mechanics was the implementation of climbing—a signature feature inspired by Spider-Man's iconic abilities. Early iterations of climbing mechanics involved shooting a raycast from the player's forward vector to identify nearby walls. Upon detection, the player's orientation would adjust accordingly, aligning with the wall's surface to create the illusion of scaling. While this initial implementation offered a glimpse of climbing mechanics, refinement was necessary to achieve the desired effect.

Despite its limitations, this early exploration laid the groundwork for further iteration and refinement, bringing the vision of dynamic, fluid movement one step closer to reality.

Development #2 - Climbing Solution P2

For the next iteration of climbing mechanics, I turned to an online solution that offered a fresh perspective. While reminiscent of previous attempts, this approach introduced a novel concept—snapping the character's orientation to the wall's surface normal. Navigation along the wall was facilitated by vertical input for ascending/descending and horizontal input for rotation.

Initially, this solution exhibited remarkable smoothness, demonstrating significant improvements over previous iterations. However, despite its technical proficiency, the control scheme left much to be desired in terms of user experience. Nonetheless, this iteration proved invaluable, inspiring ideas that would ultimately contribute to the refinement of the final solution.

Development #3 - Swinging

Following the exploration of climbing mechanics, I diverted my focus towards the implementation of swinging—a quintessential ability synonymous with Spider-Man. The swinging system demanded responsiveness, engagement, and above all, fun.

In its earliest stage, the swinging mechanic resembled more of a grappling motion. It operated on a simple principle: capturing the player's distance from the nearest surface and gradually interpolating their position towards it. Visual effects, including the distinctive "web" line, were achieved using a basic Line Renderer.

However, despite the initial progress, the gameplay experience felt somewhat floaty and lacked the desired snappiness. It became evident that more refined improvements were necessary to elevate the swinging mechanic to the standard expected in Spider-Man games. This realization spurred further experimentation and iteration, driving the quest for a more polished and satisfying swinging experience.

Development #4 - States & Chaos

In this latest development test, I delved into implementing swinging mechanics alongside an unstable state system. The swinging mechanic was crafted using spring joints, aiming to emulate Spider-Man's iconic swinging style. However, while functional, the implementation proved to be inefficient and lacked the fluidity expected in such gameplay.

As the complexity of the systems grew, my single player controller script became increasingly cluttered. To bring clarity and organization to the chaos, I introduced a basic script to manage the various states the player could be in. Yet, as more transitions and actions were introduced, this solution too succumbed to clutter, resulting in erratic player movement.

It became apparent that the game required a fundamental overhaul, starting from the ground up, to establish a robust foundation capable of accommodating these intricate mechanics. This realization marked the beginning of a journey towards a more refined and cohesive gameplay experience.

Development #5 - Character's Model

Amidst the chaos of development, I decided to shift my focus towards modeling Spider-Noir using Blender. Drawing inspiration directly from the comics, my goal was to encapsulate every aspect of the character while infusing a stylized and playful touch.

The model boasts intricate details including a coat, shirt, pants, shoes, goggles, and a fedora, meticulously crafted to mirror the character's iconic appearance. To ensure authenticity, I referenced Spider-Man's physique to match the model's build as closely as possible.

Upon completing each element of the model, I applied various shades of dark gray to evoke the unmistakable noir aesthetic associated with Spider-Noir. The final result is a creation that I'm immensely proud of, serving as a cornerstone of the game's visual identity in its ultimate iteration.

Development #6 - Model Showcase

Here's a showcase of the model in the game!

Development #7 - Overhaul

The game had reached a critical juncture, demanding a comprehensive overhaul to realize its full potential. With a fresh Unity project opened, I embarked on a journey to rebuild from the ground up, ensuring the establishment of robust and dependable foundations.

My first priority was setting up a state machine—a versatile system designed to seamlessly control and transition between the various states the player would experience. Currently encompassing over eight states including idle, walking, running, jumping, falling, climbing, sliding, swinging, and attack states, this refined state machine simplifies player control and behavior management.

In the latest development test, I showcased the implementation of idle, walking, and running states, complemented by animations sourced from Mixamo.com. These animations not only enhance visual clarity but also add an element of enjoyment to the gameplay experience.

To further enhance the atmosphere, shaders were introduced to evoke the dark-noir aesthetic that defines the game's tone. This amalgamation of refined systems and visual enhancements marks a significant stride towards realizing the vision I've been diligently pursuing.

Development #8 - Climbing & Sliding

In this latest development test, I've introduced a revamped climbing system, building upon the lessons learned from previous iterations. Aligning the player's forward vector with the surface normal of the wall, gravity is disabled, and a subtle force propels the player towards the wall. Horizontal and vertical inputs are now relative to a normal calculated between an empty object tracking the player and the world's up vector, facilitating smooth movement around any wall without the need for complex controls.

Additionally, sliding mechanics have been implemented. When the player encounters a sloped surface, they seamlessly transition into a sliding state, being naturally drawn towards the bottom of the incline. This intuitive system enhances player immersion and adds depth to traversal mechanics.

Development #9 - Swinging & Attacking

In this latest dev-test, swinging and attacking mechanics take center stage. The swinging implementation harnesses the power of spring joints alongside a custom script that dynamically adjusts velocity based on swing altitude. This results in a robust and exhilarating swinging experience, closely mirroring the fluidity of Spider-Man's iconic swings.

In tandem with swinging, I've begun work on the attacking system. The player can execute four consecutive attacks with each left-click input. These attacks seamlessly flow into one another, creating a fluid combat sequence. Hitboxes, triggered by animation keyframes, enable precise detection of enemy collisions, enhancing combat immersion.

While these systems already showcase promise, further refinement and experimentation are needed to fully unlock their potential. Nevertheless, initial impressions suggest a promising future for these mechanics, elevating gameplay to new heights.

Overview

Inspired by Wordle, Shodle takes the same core concept of guessing words! However, in this gameplay twist, the player is asked to guess cartoons shows! The objective is simple and easy to understand, the player is given images based on the show they'll need to guess, if they are correct in their guess they'll move on to the next show, if not they will be given a hint based on how many letters they guessed correctly! The game is semi-infinite, meaning that they will never run out of any tries, they will always be able to play the next round, however there is only a finite amount of shows they will be able to see.

Conceptual Vision

I've made many wordle games in the past that followed the same format of guessing a selecting and guessing a random word, the game will give hints accordingly and then it would be over. From creating those Wordle projects I've began to think about ways I could make a Wordle game that was unique to my interests whilst being interesting enough for other people to want to play it themselves, that's when I came up with the idea to make the objective to be to guess the cartoon show because I loved these shows growing up and I'm sure many others did as well. With the goal in mind, I immediately started development in Unity and not long after, Shodle was created.

Development #1 - Selection

For Shodle I've made use of Unity's UI system to display everything on the screen and the input system is used to gather the characters that the user inputs. When the game starts, a random show is selected from an array of shows and then the sets and slots are created.

Development #2 - Creating sets and slots

Inside of the create sets function, this creates a new gameobject, sets its postion and offsets it for the amount of guesses that is provided for that given word.

Inside of the create slots function, this function handles creating the slots that the characters are inserting into. The create slots function takes in the word being guessed, instantiates a slot for each character, offsets that slots postion to ensure it's evenly distributed, then checks if the word contains spaces, finds the position of the space within the word, destroys every space and then removes those spaces from the word. This is how I've made the slots displayed on the screen match that of the characters within the word being guessed.

Development #4 - Inputs

With the sets and slots all creating, the game just needed the mechanics to actually be played now. Using the Unity Input System, I grab the character that the user inputs and update the display to match. This is handled in the UpdateDisplay function and the way it works is as long as the character count is less than the max range (max range keeps track of the length of the current set) it will find the slot by indexing the current character count (character count starts at 0 and increments by 1 each time the player inputs a character) and assign it to the character the player inputted.

As that handles inputting characters, the OnBackspace function handles when the user decides to remove a character. When that happens as long as character count is greater than the minrange, character count is decremented by 1, and the slot at that position is set to an empty string.

Once a player fills in all the slots with a character, they can then hit enter(return) to submit their guess. This is handled in the OnEnter function, first it checks whether all the slots are filled first, then it sends to the game manager that the guessed word. Once the player sends a guess the UI is updated accordingly using DOTween, to notify whether the guess was correct or not. Then the guess is reset, and the max and min range variables are updated to match the bounds of the next set.

Development #4 - Guessing

All that's left to complete the game is the guess registration, this is handled in the Game Manager. The function Guess takes in the word that the player has guessed, the starting bound of the current set, whether or not the player has used all their attempts, and a list of all the sets. First it traverses through the current set, updating the current graphic to display whether the letter is in the right position (green), if its in the word but not in the right position (yellow), or if the letter doesn't exist in the word (gray). Then it checks whether or not the guess is correct, all of the player's stats is updated correct whether the player guessed correctly or not, then the results screen pops up and the player is given the option to play again.

Development #5 - Completion

And with that, that concludes all of the systems and mechanics behind the development of Shodle! Here is a preview of the systems in action.

Development

Development

Development