Legend Of The Vampire Hunter-Hunter (Player Progression)

Type of Project: Academic Team of 6 | Role: Systems Designer | Genre: Top-down Shooter | Duration: 5 weeks | Year Created: Late 2024 | Software: Unity, C#

Role & Contributions

  • Collected and parsed playtest data

    • identified player tendencies and frustration

  • Designed player progression system

    • to reinforce player playstyles and preferred combat loop

  • Prototyped and removed Mana system

    • gave players Health-based abilities to streamline resource usage

Health-based Player Abilities

(Health-based Player Abilities)

Core pillar
Fast-paced, high-tension gameplay.

Problem
Traditional mana, cooldown, and reloading systems ran contrary to our core pillar by slowing down the game.

Suggested Solution
We gave the player two abilities — a dash and a timeslow, and I suggested using Lifeforce (health) as a resource to use these abilities. Players would regain Lifeforce by absorbing souls dropped by dead enemies.

Results
After prototyping and playtesting the new mechanics, players found the system intuitive and picked it up with minimal to no friction. We were also satisfied with the system’s thematic tie-in with the vampire theme of the game.

Dash and Timeslow

Player Progression

(Increased movement speed after kill)


(Before Upgrade)

(After Upgrade)

(Long-Range Damage Upgrade)

(Short-Range Damage Upgrade)

(Invulnerability during time slow)

Bloodthirsty Upgrade

Intention
I tried to incentivize players to play more recklessly by rushing enemies down, rather than hiding and picking enemies off one-by-one.

Upgrade Mechanic
To incentivize aggressive play, the Bloodthirsty upgrade gives the player a stacking movement speed buff that is lost after a few seconds of not killing an enemy.

Result
Players didn’t explicitly notice the effects of the upgrade, but it seemed to help them strafe and kill enemies. Better UX feedback would have helped sell the effects of the upgrade to make it feel more impactful.

Piercing Bullet Upgrade

Intention
Less-skilled players would frequently draw aggression of many enemies at the same time without killing them, then struggle to deal with the enemies once they were clumped up. I wanted to give them the fantasy of mowing down groups of enemies rather than have them be punished for sub-optimal pathing.

Upgrade Mechanic
The upgrade allows bullets to pierce through enemies with no damage falloff.

Result
The sentiment from skilled players was that the upgrade seemed unnecessary as they kill enemies before they group up, hence getting no value from the upgrade.

Less-skilled players generally appreciated the upgrade, and many of them enjoyed the moment when they opened-fire on a large group of enemies.


Range Upgrade Choices

Intention
Many players started to struggle to clear the second stage, and by this point, players had started to adopt one of two playstyles: dashing into enemies and killing them to regain lifeforce, or drawing aggression of enemies to clump them and gun them down.

I attempted to solve the difficulty problem by giving the players a choice between a long-range or short-range upgrade, which would add a multiplier to the damage dealt. This would let the player progress with the game difficulty, and reward their personal playstyle.

Upgrade Mechanic
The upgrade makes bullets deal more damage depending on the distance of the enemy from the player.

Result
Most players enjoyed the upgrade as it made them feel as if they had more agency. This effectively helped to balance the difficulty of the game with regard to the more challenging enemies and helped to reduce frustration.

Several players who were more skilled at the game mentioned that the change didn’t make an impact for them as gun damage was not their issue, but getting close enough to finish the enemy off.


Chronobreak Upgrade

Intention
By the final level before the boss fight, I wanted players to start feeling powerful to lead up to the climax of the game. I did that by removing the mechanical skill required of using the time slow ability to dodge bullets, and allowed the player to rush through enemy attacks instead.

This would allow players to focus on resource management instead, rather than the dodging aspect of the game, which would allow us to increase the perceived difficulty of the game by adding more enemies.

Upgrade Mechanic
The upgrade makes the player invulnerable when slowing time down.

Result
Players generally didn’t notice the effect of the update at all. The naming of the upgrade, “Chronobreak”, didn’t give players the impression of the effect, and there wasn’t user feedback of the ability being active. While this did make the game less frustrating, it also didn’t successfully sell the player fantasy.

Given more time to iterate on this upgrade, I would focus more on the player feedback to show the impact of the upgrade.


Last Stand Upgrade

Intention
For the last upgrade in the final level before the boss fight, I intended the players to get their most powerful upgrade, yet have some time to experience it so that they knew how it worked. I wanted this upgrade to feel like their final milestone, their final form to defeat the boss with.

Upgrade Mechanic
The upgrade allows the player to stay alive for a couple seconds after death. If the player regains Lifeforce within this time period, they come back to life.

Result
The reception to this ability was overwhelmingly positive as many players thought that it was cool and powerful. From post-playtest interviews, I concluded that the ability was able to sell the fantasy of playing a powerful vampire, as well as allowed the boss fight to feel tense while actually being relatively easy because of this upgrade.