devlog.002 / Survival Horror Combat
Hey, Mike here again with a quick update and our second official devlog. (I can’t believe it’s July already…)
Nothing exciting to report… except OH WAIT, we’re gonna be in the Convergence indie games showcase next THURSDAY, JULY 16 at NOON PACIFIC. This is huge, it’s an awesome event showcasing a ton of fantastic games and devs, and we’re really excited to share a new look at GRAFT with you all - so tune in!
Besides the showcase trailer, things we’ve been working on:
concept art for new grafts (plus a key NPC) - stay tuned next month for more about designing the world of GRAFT and its characters
Implementing new tuneable enemy AI behaviors (for example, so that different enemy types can coordinate their attacks and use appropriate melee/ranged abilities in response to the player)
upgrading from Unreal 5.5 to 5.7 - maybe not the most exciting, but it’s important to tackle these updates at the right times in production (usually between milestones) and stabilize around them
adding a new “Evolved” Botched (zombie) enemy type - I won’t say too much about it, but I think it’s safe to say this one will keep you on your toes…
finished our v2 story spine for the rest of the game (I’m particularly excited about this)
new walk/run animations
design and art for the next area of the game (working name: The Sluiceways)
pre-production for two new locations (working names: the Enclave and the Metrocrypt)
In short, plenty of progress to start off the summer with. Thanks for following along!
That’s enough housekeeping - here’s our new devlog from our Lead Developer, Carlos Giraldo. Carlos is a truly multi-disciplinary game developer, artist and designer (as well as a huge survival horror fan, from the PS1/2 classics to Requiem.) He’s led Harebrained’s transition to Unreal and is responsible for building most of the core combat gameplay and grafting systems you can see in our trailers. He also makes a mean cheesecake. Anyway over to Carlos!
Combat Goals & Mechanics
Carlos here, I'm excited to go over some of our combat goals and mechanics. The core of it is based on established principles that make combat encounters in survival horror games so addictively tense and satisfying, like in the Resident Evil and Dead Space series, but with a couple of unique twists.
Survival requires both efficiency and effectiveness in your choices. It’s not just about choosing the right tool for the job, it’s also about considering the cost. There are several ways to fend off enemies: pistols, explosive ordinance, shotgun blasts, Graft abilities…etc. But ammo and resources are limited, and to survive the Arc's most dangerous threats, you will have to decide when to fight, when to avoid, and when to run. To help support this mindset, we’ve opted to rely on the classic grid inventory system. It works really well showing you at a glance everything you have, allowing easier flexibility in balancing the difficulty by setting limits on how much things can stack and how much space the icons take. (Not final UI)
Now lets go over aiming. With the pistol equipped as an example, you will automatically lock on to targets across your forward facing. The longer you steady yourself (reticle will shrink), the more precise the shot will be, dealing increased damage, critical chance, and stagger. Being close to your enemy also increases your precision, at the expense of putting you in greater danger. You can move while aiming, but that decreases your precision. Other weapon’s aiming systems will be different, like the shotgun doing more damage the closer you are.
If you aren’t careful, the ravenous Botched will restrain you in a deadly embrace. But you may be carrying just what you need to break free. In the vastness of the Arc, you will find helpful items like an electrified knife. You can use these to pierce the skulls of those that don’t know how to respect personal boundaries. And as a parting gift, after a few seconds, the hilt will discharge at high-voltage, enough to stun or even decapitate. You will find other such items as well that may yield more explosive results.
But as they say, the best defense is a good offense. Surviving the Arc will require finding and using powerful new Grafts. One Graft I'd like to showcase heightens your visual senses, enabling you to aim directly at enemies' body parts. Activating this power will slow down time. Use this moment to fire off a well-placed shot, but first, think tactically about where to shoot.
Aiming at the head is the obvious choice. Can do the most damage, a small chance of complete cranial obliteration (though rumors have spread of Botched who have shrugged off this so-called fatal blow). It is an artform trying to create really juicy and satisfying headshots. A combination of the right time-dilation curve, post-process effects, hit-reacts, screen shakes, and definitely more blood than is human-ly possible.
When slowing them down is the best option, aim at their legs. Staggers them, putting them in a state you might recognize if you’re familiar with a certain wise-cracking, Spanish countryside-trekking protagonist's moveset. Once an enemy is staggered, move in close and perform a powerful melee attack, which does a fair bit of damage and can help knock back other enemies in the way.
Arms can also be dismembered, preventing enemies from using certain attacks and abilities, making them easier to deal with. This is an example of our use of gameplay tags to pass reactive data along to our gameplay systems. Certain enemies also have hidden weakpoints that can be targeted. Oh, and remember what I said earlier about the electrified knife and being stuck to the target's skull? I think you can put two and two together and discover new and creative ways to synergize.
Grafts are certainly powerful, but they come with costs, so you will have to pace yourself. I hope this helps in understanding how the basics of combat work, and what vibe we are going with for our fresh take on Survival Horror combat that delivers on that deliciously tense and tactical experience that makes me and many others come back to them again and again.
We’ll be back next month with a new devlog looking deeper at the world of GRAFT. In the meantime, tune in for the Convergence Showcase next Thursday, and let me know if you have any questions about our survival horror combat mechanics.
