ROLE
TIME
Enemy Designer
May 2024 - June 2024
DESCRIPTION
GENRE
Bardo is an action-adventure game taking place in the realm between life and death. Glide through the broken skies and overcome your inner demons as they threaten to prevent your ascent back to the world of the living.
Action Adventure
PLATFORM
Windows PC
TEAM SIZE
24
ENGINE
MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES
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Design & Implementation of the game's boss fight.
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Design of the game's other enemy.
Unreal Engine 5
BOSS FIGHT
Designed behavior & arena
The biggest constraint I had to work around when designing the boss fight is Bardo's main mechanics, ranged combat and air gliding.
I aimed to incorporate both of these mechanics into the fight as much as possible, to make it an appropriate conclusion to the game.
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​The player should be encouraged to get in the air and attack the boss from range.
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The player starts the fight without the energy for their ranged attacks.
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Energy pickups are placed in the air, along with wind tunnels around the arena that launch the player in the air, encouraging the player to get in the air.
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If the player is on the center platform for too long, the boss will use an attack that knocks the player off the platform.
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The boss starts the fight with a shield that can only be broken by hitting all the crystals in the air with a ranged attack. These crystals are connected to the boss via a tether, making them easy to spot. Looking for the crystals also makes it more likely for players to spot the energy pickups in the sky.
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When the boss is defeated, the large monolith activates and becomes a portal to the end of the game.​
Implemented AI using UE5 Behavior Trees & Blueprints
Since the boss doesn't move, I made the behavior tree relatively simple. It goes through a number of checks and then readies the appropriate attack for use.
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Set up Animation Blueprint
Since, again, the boss does not move from its location, the animation blueprint can be very straightforward. Animation montages are played based on the readied attack, after which the 'TriggerAttack' notify calls the attack's respective function in the Boss' blueprint.
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After finalizing an attack animation, the boss will return to its idle animation.
ENEMY - ANXIETY SPIRIT
Designed behavior
Bardo is a game that's mostly focused on exploration. This enemy has been designed to be easy to defeat, but forces the player to keep an eye on their surroundings so they don't get caught off guard. This focus on the surroundings will then let the player experience the game's environments and views in a natural way.
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The enemy fires attacks at the player from range, so they can be placed in specific areas, subtly directing the player's attention to those areas.
