Movement Design Goals

Gotta Go Fast!

Hi everyone, this is Devan with the Treble Thieves team. Today I will be explaining some of our goals for the game’s player movement system. Our game is extremely movement-focused, so ensuring the movement aligns with our goals is absolutely vital. 

One of our goals with the movement system in this game is to maximize player skill expression while still allowing novice players to have a good experience. We are primarily using the player’s capacity to chain multiple abilities together to achieve this. Another aspect of our game that promotes skill expression is the interaction between the player and the environment. The more you play, the more you will learn how best to exploit your environment to help you speed through the level.  

The Titanfall franchise does a great job of combining movement abilities and environmental features to crank the speed up to 11 

The other big goal with our movement system is keeping the players in constant motion. All the character abilities are designed with the purpose of helping the players conserve momentum. For example, the character’s slide ability boosts them forward slightly, even without a slope to slide down.  

A look at the character’s in-development slide ability 

If there is a slope, the slide ability presents the opportunity for immense momentum gain, depending on the incline and length of the slope. Even the character’s attack, which wouldn’t normally influence their movement, assists in maintaining their speed: while attacking, the character has reduced gravity. This allows them to jump higher and grapple further when used in combination with a jump or grapple. Doing this can allow players to bypass obstacles in their environment that would otherwise impede them. I will leave discussion of the character’s grapple ability for another day, but I can assure you that it too plays a vital role in keeping the player moving. These design considerations allow the game to maintain its fast-paced, fluid feel. 

Marvel's Spider-Man is an excellent example of a game with a fast-paced, fluid movement system  

That’s all for now, but make sure to check back next week for a deep dive into the design and development history of the grapple ability. It’s sure to sweep you off your feet! 

-Devan 

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