Colby Cormier
Gameplay & Systems Designer
Digital
Analog
Project Ronin
In Project Samurai, legendary feline ronin Mewamoto Mewsashi is challenged by the vengeful spirits of his past opponents to one final duel--to the death. He must put every ounce of his Pouncing Tiger Style sword techniques to the test in order to prove, once and for all, that his skill stands uncontested--even by death itself.
Genre: Arcade, Action, Platformer
Roles: Gameplay Designer, Programmer, Animator
Tools: C#, MonoGame Framework, Aseprite
Download on Itch.io Now! Steam release TBA.
Contributions
Project Ronin features a slightly unique movement system for a platformer; it replaces the typical running and jumping options with a more methodical standard movement system that turns into an an explosive dash and combo system after countering an enemy attack. Additionally, instead of dying when being hit with an enemy attack, the player is sent tumbling backwards for a short period of time, which shaves precious seconds off of the clock.
Standard Movement
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The player's main ground movement system is comprised of slow left and right movement, with access to a faster 8-direction dash that the player can use by holding down and releasing the dash button.
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The "charge dash" allows the player to move freely in one of 8 directions for a short time, instantly defeating any enemies in the player's path, serving as an analogue to the player's jump in a traditional platform. Considering the fact that it works on a cooldown, the brevity of the dash itself, and the fact that the player can only change directions while using it once, it is a considerably committal movement option, and was designed to be a tool that players use only sparingly as a movement tool, a quick way to finish off the final enemy of a stage, or as a positioning tool to set up for a counter. This discrepancy proves to be the game's first big knowledge check.
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Early in development, the player was not given access to this secondary dash option. It quickly became apparent that without a way to freely move around the stage, however, it was incredibly hard to prevent softlocks without exceptionally narrow level design.
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Initially, the player was not able to change directions after a charge dash, but that consolation was later added after playtests where players complained of certain stages being too difficult or too cumbersome to traverse while only being able to travel in a straight line on a lengthy cooldown.
Counter
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The Counter is one of the most important components of the player's moveset, and is deeply tied within the player's movement mechanics. Conceptually, Project Ronin started as an experiment to see what a platformer designed around a counter/dash system would look like, so it was incredibly important for it to feel good.
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By pressing the counter button shortly before being hit by an enemy attack, the player is able to launch a counter attack against the offender, defeating them and sending the player into a much faster 8 direction aerial dash state.
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Considering the fact that getting hit by an enemy can feel incredibly punishing, and most of the difficulty and skill expression present within the game is rooted in the dashing system rather than the countering system, it was decided during development that the counter should have a generous active window, with a noticeable but manageable cooldown such that it cannot be spammed but players feel comfortable with taking risks with counters.
Dash/Slash Movement
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By landing a counter, the player will be sent into a quick aerial Dash state, in which they can freely move in 8 directions.
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This state is differentiated from the Charge Dash by its higher speed, longer length, freedom to change directions at any time. Additionally, while Dashing after a counter, players can press the Counter button again in order to do a Slash attack.
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Upon successfully defeating an enemy with a Slash while Dashing, the dash timer will be reset, allowing the player to continue moving. This process can be repeated until the dash timer ends before a player successfully lands a Slash on an enemy.
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With stages being only a single screen in size, and the dashing/slashing mechanic having a tendency to either be far too easy or far too precise to land, a lot of care was put into the balancing of every aspect of this state, such as the speed of the dash vs the length of the dash, the size of the enemies' hurtboxes vs the size of the player's hitbox, the cooldown of the slash animation, etc.
Damage State
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When getting hit by an enemy, instead of dying, the player is sent tumbling backwards for a short period. They are unactionable during this period, and cannot change their aerial movement until recovering.
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When initially testing the concept, touching an enemy would instantly kill the player and send them to respawn on a predefined start point, without resetting the progress of the stage, as in most other arcade games.
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Counters are typically high-risk, high-reward mechanics. Considering the fact that the entire game is centered around this mechanic, the punishment of dying upon being hit a single time felt antithetical to that idea, and actively discouraged players from being willing to take the risk and engage with enemies.
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When deciding to switch the loss condition from a lives system to a perpetual timer, it suddenly made much more sense to tie the punishment for getting hit back into the timer system.
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Considering that most of the game is based around movement and interacting with enemies at a close range, it felt right for the punishment for missing a counter to be losing substantial time and having to recover your position.
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Considering the unique position that enemies occupy within Project Samurai, serving as both obstacles of progress and access to the player's movement options locked behind interaction, each enemy was designed to compliment or subvert this system in some way.
Nyaginata Demon
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Naginata enemies patrol platforms side to side, turning around when they hit a wall or another enemy. Upon the player entering their range, they will begin chasing the player, and attack with a telegraphed naginata attack.
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The naginata enemy was designed to be an incredibly basic, yet versatile enemy. Being the first enemy that the player encounters, and present in nearly every level, it had to be easy to understand how to deal with, but dynamic enough to continue to create engaging gameplay situations throughout the entire game.
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The highly telegraphed attack was intended to serve as a silent tutorial, being easy enough to predict that players can quickly memorize its pattern, but quick enough that it still requires ample mastery of countering to consistently react to, making it an effective training tool for the player.
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Its unique movement behavior was used as a way to allow for it to continue to be an engaging enemy throughout the entire game. The naginata enemy has a hidden attribute that allows it randomly choose the direction that it begins moving in at the start of a stage, ensuring that there is always some slight variance that the player must account for no matter how many times they have played through a stage.
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Additionally, due to the fact that the naginata enemy will chase the player if they are within a certain range, there are opportunities to use this behavior quirk to lead them into more advantageous places to start a combo, or even force players into disadvantageous positions if they aren't careful about how they engage with these enemies, which often creates new situations even upon subsequent replays of stages.
Assassin Demon
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Assassin enemies appear stationary until the player enters their range. At this point, they disappear, reappearing to attack the player from behind a moment later, and then repeat this process.
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The assassin was designed to be a slightly more advanced enemy. While defeating them is as simple as countering their attack when they appear behind the player, similar to the naginata enemy, the fact that they disappear for a short time before the player gets this opportunity and always appear directly behind the player was intended to be both an additional layer of cognitive load as a player encounters other enemies and a form of skill expression, as players can choose to engage the assassin at a point which may allow for the start or end to a combo closer to other enemies in the stage.
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Triggering an assassin while fighting another enemy can also be a way to reduce the time it takes to defeat one, becoming another small piece of skill expression that their design lends to. Engaging an assassin head on can be a costly endeavor, with their entire attack sequence taking longer than most enemies in the game--however, by engaging an assassin, starting a combo off of another enemy, and then using the assassin to continue the dash as it reappears, the time loss is either negligable or nonexistant.
Yumi Demon
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Yumi enemies, similarly to naginata enemies, patrol left to right upon until spotting the player. When the player is spotted, if the player is a suitable distance away, it will fire an arrow at the player--otherwise, it will run in the opposite direction before either hitting a wall or getting a suitable distance away from the player, at which point it will then fire its bow.
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The bow-wielding yumi demons were designed to exploit the player's short range, but highly mobile moveset. There is no way for the player to defeat the yumi enemy from a distance, and countering its arrow will not defeat the yumi enemy, which forces the player to find a way to close the gap. This is made more interesting, however, as countering the arrow will allow the player to start or continue a dash, meaning that a player can utilize the arrow to close the gap.
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Being the only projectile-focused enemy in the game, dealing with the yumi enemy was made to at first feel very oppressive, as the arrows are quick and difficult to notice, but quickly begin to serve a very useful purpose, as the arrows are an incredibly easy way to chain multiple dashes off of a single enemy.
Floating Head Demon
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Floating Head enemies appear to be stationary objects that float in the sky, before waking up and chasing the player. It can move freely throughout the air, and after a short period of chasing the player, it locks its movement in a single direction and speeds toward the player.
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The floating head is the game's first truly difficult enemy, intending to be a relentless force that is able to chase the player without the limits of other enemies in the game. Additionally, once it begins targeting the player, it does not stop until it is defeated, unlike most other enemies in the game.
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As such, during playtesting, it was decided that they should be used sparingly as a skill test when a level was intended to be particularly difficult.
Gashado-neko Boss
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The game's first boss, the Gashado-neko, features a weak spot in the center of its skull that is only vulnerable when one of its two hands are falling down in an attempt to crush the player.
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This boss is intended to serve as an execution test for the player's abilities, as it is one of the only enemies in the game that cannot be defeated by countering the source of its attack, and requires the player to navigate to a secondary attack point and land a second counter.
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Project Ronin, being an atypical platformer where efficient movement is tied to chaining aerial dashes off of enemies instead of running and jumping, required stages to be designed with the following philosophies in mind:
Puzzle-Like, Combo-Centric Enemy and Platform Placement
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Each stage was designed to effectively function as a mini puzzle, encouraging players to not only master the game's movement mechanics, but also learn the how the layout of the stage, enemy placement, and enemy attack patterns create efficient patterns which can be utilized to clear a stage.
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As such, each stage was designed to be able to be completed with a single combo, assuming the player can both meet the execution requirements and find the correct pattern(s) present within the level.
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Being an arcade-inspired game, this pattern of memorization was also meant to play into the aspects of mastery and replayability which are intended to be core aspects of the game.
Limited Verticality, Extended Horizontal Movement
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Due to both the single-screen nature of each level and the aforementioned movement limitations, each stage was designed around the bulk of required movement being vertical instead of horizontal.
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Vertical navigation is still required in many cases, such as in the case of navigating to an enemy at a different height level to continue a dash chain--however, it was found in playtesting that the player's vertical movement capabilities felt unsatisfying when not dashing, as their movement is locked into one of 8 directions for a short period of time, and can only be changed once while dashing in mid-air.
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Vertical movement outside of a dash chain was determined to be a punishment for poor execution. Rather than correcting for this fact within the player's moveset, it was instead decided that players the time loss was a suitable punishment for a lack of mastery, and level design was shifted to generally require more horizontal interaction, lessening the amount of time that the player has to spend in situations where they have to move vertically.
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Platform Fighter Demo
A ground-up prototype for a platform fighter, complete with an original moveset for a character adapted from another project.
Genre: Platform Fighter
Roles: Gameplay Designer, Programmer, Animator
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#, Maya, Medibang
Contributions
This demo features a functionally complete
Neutral Attacks / Aerial Attacks
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Bullets
Special Attacks
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Bullets
Shielding
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Bullets
Dashing
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Bullets
Hitstun / Shield Stun / Hitstop
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Bullets
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Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Urban Legends
Urban Legends is a hero shooter inspired by folktales, urban legends, and cryptid mythos. Each playable Legend includes a complete set of abilities inspired by the tales that surround them.
Roles: Ability Designer, Systesm Designer
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#, Maya
Contributions
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Inheritance
Inheritance is a simplified, beginner-friendly fighting game based on a modern interpretation of the Salem witch trials. It features the system mechanics of a traditional fighting game with a two button tilt-based control scheme.
Genre: Fighting
Roles: Lead Gameplay Designer, Lead Animator, Lead Programmer
Tools: Unreal Engine 5, Blueprints, Maya
Team Size: 17
Contributions
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
SKELETON MAZE
SKELETON MAZE is an off-beat survival horror experiment based on a 2015 project that never saw the light of day. Can you find your way to the heart of the maze before the skeleton catches you?
Genre: Survival Horror
Roles: Gameplay Designer, Level Designer, Enemy AI
Engine: Unity 2022
Tools: C#, Maya, MediBang Paint
Contributions
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Prototypes
Blood in the Pines
Blood in the Pines is a unique fusion of survival horror and beat 'em up.
Genre: Survival Horror, Beat 'em Up
Roles: Gameplay Designer, Systems Designer, Combat Designer
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#, Maya
Team Size: 5
Contributions
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
RPG Battle System Prototype
A prototype for an RPG battle system, complete with overworld encounters, items, spells, and an active-time battle-inspired priority system.
Genre: RPG
Roles: Systems Designer, Combat Designer
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#, Maya
Contributions
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Ghost Hunter Prototype
A reverse engineering of the ghost catching system and movement mechanics present in Nintendo's Luigi's Mansion.
Roles: Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, Lead Animator
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#
Contributions
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Quick Kitty
Quick Kitty is an attempt at making a fully working platformer inspired by the limitations of handheld LCD games.
Genre: Platformer
Roles: Gameplay Designer, Programmer
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#, Medibang
Contributions
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Detailed analysis coming soon.
Slasher Game
Inheritance is a video game with some significance for some reason. Lorem ipsum. Testing how this all looks with a big paragraph here. Geez, do we really need all of this information??
Roles: Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, Lead Animator
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#
Yards of the Nekomancers
Inheritance is a video game with some significance for some reason. Lorem ipsum. Testing how this all looks with a big paragraph here. Geez, do we really need all of this information??
Roles: Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, Lead Animator
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#
Marvel Snap Crossover Test
Inheritance is a video game with some significance for some reason. Lorem ipsum. Testing how this all looks with a big paragraph here. Geez, do we really need all of this information??
Roles: Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, Lead Animator
Engine: Unity 6
Tools: C#
