Movement and spatial relationships are integral to Kyon's core mechanic of herding sheep. Because of this, it was essential to have a variety of environmental threats and obstacles.
Our environment actors needed to stay consistent in regards to both gameplay and aesthetics, so the were developed to complement each environment of the game. This includes mud pits, falling trees, burning bushes, animal traps, flaming trees, lava spouts, falling boulders, and avalanches.
In some encounters the player must use environmental actors against enemy AI. For instance, during the final boss encounter the player must trick the blind cyclops, Polyphemus, into running against various dangerous props in the environment to stun him. This allows the player to get some damage in.
That's it from me this week. Until next time.
Jack Lipoff
Lead Designer
When developing Kyon, we had to make sure to maintain a strong connection between the player and the core concept of being a sheepdog. My previous blog post covered the herding aspects of player mechanics, but another aspect of being a sheepdog is protecting the herd.
Designing combat systems for Kyon was much more focused on enemy AI design rather than player ability mechanics to maintain variety of encounter. Throughout the game, the player must defend the herd from enemy AI opponents such as cultists, wolves, and mythological creatures. Kyon, being a dog, has limited combat abilities. To deal damage, the player can use a bite attack, or a sprinting charge attack.
The bite is fairly basic, being a general purpose attack that deals one increment of damage per successful strike. It's what any given player would expect of a dog character to be able to do.
The sprint attack sends Kyon in whatever direction he is facing at the time of activating the ability at a high speed for a set distance. Kyon will deal one increment of damage when successfully colliding with an enemy, but it also serves other utilitarian purposes. It's useful for evading enemies when low on health, closing with fast moving enemies who are difficult to catch up to, or quickly getting around the flock if the player needs to quickly change their direction.
So being that Kyon's combat abilities are limited, the design goal was to keep encounters varied by having opponents respond differently to Kyon's abilities. One way is through bark commands.
he cultists, for example, are scared of Kyon's bark. If the player uses any bark within range of a cultist they will drop a sheep if carrying one and run the opposite direction for a time. This helps the player manage the herd when taking on multiple cultist enemies.
However, with wolves the barks do they opposite. Wolves aren't afraid, and will actually prioritize Kyon as a target. This increases difficulty for the player, since these bark commands are an important way to manage the herd. At the same time, players can use this to their advantage and aggro the wolves away from the herd when necessary.
These bark and bite abilities can be used in more complex ways utilizing the environment in other scenarios. During the final boss fight, for example, Polyphemus is blind and searches for the player. The player cannot damage Polyphemus, and will take damage from him when physically close. Instead, the player must use bark commands to attract him towards dangerous environment actors that can stun Polyphemus. This is when the player can get a few hits in.
Well, that covers Kyon's basic abilities for combat. For my next post I will be writing about environmental hazards.
Until next time.
-Jack Lipoff
When we first began developing this game, the first and most important aspect of the game that was examined was the player's core mechanic: sheep herding. While there have been a number of video games in the past that focus on guiding friendly AI through treacherous environments, we could find very few non-strategy titles that centered on mob behavior controlled with passive player guidance. This made the design process difficult, as I had few examples to draw from. Designing, refining, and implementing the core herding mechanic required a great deal of attention and care.
Player Movement
The first step was determining how the player would move and interact with the world. We had already settled that the game would have a top down third person view with the most minimal UI possible. A key part of this was sticking strictly to what a dog would be capable of. What can Kyon do, and what can he not do?
The player moves freely in a 360 degree range and can sprint short distances. The player's movement had to be as smooth as possible with the joystick on a gamepad, because the player's steering affects the herd's steering.
Corralling Sheep
Next, I had to determine how the player interacts with the sheep. Any time the player comes across a lone sheep, they can have that sheep join the herd by touching the sheep.
Originally, we had an invisible AI herd actor that was repelled from the player, and the sheep would continuously follow that invisible actor. This allowed the sheep to always move in the opposite direction of the player. This, unfortunately, created issues with sheep jamming up on each other trying to get to the herd actor, could cause issues if the sheep somehow were separated from the herd actor, and reduced the player's ability to quickly visually understand where the flock's center of gravity and direction of movement is.
Herding Sheep
Instead, we introduced Horatio, a ram with golden fleece that guides the herd. This served to give the player a much better visual understanding of where the herd is going, and also reduced the amount of sheep pileups that occurred. Again, making sure the player feels like they are in control of not only their character, but also the flock has been the top design priority for this game.
Bark Commands
The player uses two bark commands to control the flock: a stop bark and a go bark. The stop bark has Horatio immediately stop moving if within range, thus the flock stops. If the player uses the go bark after this, Horatio will resume his normal behavior. If the sheep haven't been ordered to stop, the go bark will make them briefly move much faster.
Picking Up Sheep
The player has the ability to pick up and carry sheep if they so choose. This is useful for getting trapped sheep, stray sheep taking too long to get to the flock, or fixing traffic jams.
Each of these core mechanics went through multiple iterations, which allowed Chris and me to refine interaction between the player and the sheep. To me, this was the most important factor of the game. The herding system is relatively novel, and being the core mechanic of the entire game meant that it had to immediately be enjoyable to navigate the world and guide the sheep. It wouldn't matter about how good any other aspect of this game was. If the herding mechanics don't feel responsive or enjoyable to the player, the game is a failure. Fortunately, we have been receiving very positive feedback from playtesters indicating that they enjoy the herding mechanics. However, there's always more to refine and improve and we will continue to work on it.
Jack Lipoff
Product Owner
Lead Designer
Greetings!
This is the development blog for Kyon, a student created video game with settings and characters inspired by Greek mythology. This blog will be where we, the developers, will describe our practices, techniques, and thought processes that we use to create our vision. Stay tuned to see examples of art, programming, and game design concepts and assets that we created to make this game a reality!
Jack Lipoff
Lead Designer
Product Owner
