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INTRODUCTION
The combat in HYPERFIST is based on three core pillars:
Make the most radical punch
Above all else, the primary objective of HYPERFIST is to deliver on some radical and awesome punching.
Excessive style
In order to deliver on the most radical punch, the game needs to be bleeding style from every place possible.
Make the player feel awesome
When the player is engaging with HYPERFIST, we want them to feel awesome - the kind that kids feel when watching action cartoons.
PLAYER COMBAT
Designing the player's attacks and movement was the longest and most difficult process of my work on this game. It went through countless iterations, each new one getting closer to the core pillars of the game. I was in charge of creating the attacks, movement tech, stats, knockback, controls, and more.
I worked closely with the gameplay programmers, UI team, and level design team to create an expansive, interactive attack set and movement system with a focus on player freedom, expression, and ease of use.
ENEMIES
I was responsible for designing and balancing every enemy in the game, of which there are 6. I designed each one with respect to the systems of the player, to create a combat system that allows for freely flowing emergent gameplay with a high skill ceiling that retains a low skill floor.
I worked with multiple artists and programmers to implement each enemy after designing them, and then was responsible for balancing the stats, knockback, and behavior of each one.
COMBAT RANK
The more stylishly the player fights, the higher their combat rank climbs, increasing their damage. I was responsible for balancing each rank's timer, threshold, multiplier, and damage modifier.
In addition, I was responsible for coding and balancing the style bonus system, which increases the combat rank based on the player performing specific actions during their fights.
Balancing this system was a never-ending task that consumed almost all of my time during the polish phase of this game's development, with many dozens of hours of testing.
FINAL BOSS
The game's final boss was a large commitment that took many months of development and balancing. I was responsible for designing the unique boss systems of locomotion, attack opportunities, phase transitions, and behavior, and I was also responsible for designing its attacks, stats, knockback, and rank scaling.
Playtesting and balancing this fight was one of my longest-running tasks for this game, since any changes to the rank system or the player attacks and movement affected this fight drastically.
BEHAVIOR DESIGN
Because every encounter has many enemies all present at the same time, I was responsible for designing alternative behavior for enemies when there are many in one encounter. I had to observe enemy behavior and balance the various timers and queues to create encounters that were both realistic and fun.
I worked closely with our game AI programmer to design an efficient system for the enemies to follow during encounters that still allowed for flashy style and player expression.
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