Samuel Schlenker Game Design
Unity KO
Project Overview
The premise of the game is to defeat an AI opponent in a virtual boxing ring using an arsenal of boxing punches and maneuvers. The player can score points by landing punches on their opponent, and win the match by scoring more points at the end of the round than the AI opponent. The purpose of this creative challenge is to force myself to learn more about animation, lighting, and presentation within Unity 3D. In order to accomplish this goal, I will be heavily relying on Adobe’s Mixamo platform which supplies free animation assets, including an entire suite of boxing specific animations.
Major Contributions
Gameplay Design
Designed gameplay systems and worked with scriptors to create a framework for multiple systems
Scripting
Designed and created concept sheets for gameplay mechanics and worked with scriptors to turn gameplay concepts into final mechanics
Animations
Helped with the visualization and concepting phase of development including the environment references, and UI references
UI
Implemented the explosion effects into the game using Unity's free effects suite
Gameplay
In this build of UnityKO, the player is capable of a number of different actions including throwing a jab, uppercut, hook, and moving forwards and backwards. The player can score points by landing hits on their opponent within the round. At the end of each round, the player's position resets as does the score. Currently, there is no intelligent AI or player two to compete against. In the current build of the game, your opponent is a stationary dummy that flinches and reacts to your punches.
Early prototype
This prototype captures much of the lighting, camera perspective, and tone I wanted to capture with this project. Notably missing from this prototype, however, is any of the combat gameplay elements. For this reason, this early prototype still only served as a visual reference for me to build off of when implementing the animations and combat into this playable demo.
Animation
A major component of this project is its reliance on 3D animation as the purpose of this project is to highlight skills I have learned regarding animation in Unity 3D. I sourced all of the animations used in this project from an Adobe platform called Mixamo. Mixamo is a free-to-use library of animations meant for use in Unity 3D. Below is an image of the platform and a portion of its library of animations. After sourcing these animations from Mixamo, I then had to create an animation controller within Unity 3D in order to utilize them in gameplay.
First iteration of the score-bug
Second iteration of the score-bug
UI and score-bug
The UI and score-bug went through several iterations throughout the development of this project. As you can see the original idea for the score-bug was to use a red-on-black theme. This was meant to look more intense in order to match the tone of a combat sport. As development continued, however, the score-bug became less intense with time, switching from red to yellow-orange and then from yellow-orange to white.
Final iteration of score-bug with accompanying tutorial prompt
Early concept
The development process began with a few mock-up diagrams I created in a program called Draw.io. These mock-ups included a concept for the camera perspective of the game, as well as an early mock-up of the game's UI. These elements would end up being invaluable in helping me create an early prototype of the game's visual feel.
