HollyShoot

HollyShoot Trailer-(1080p60).mp4

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Genre: First Person Arena Shooter

Release date: 2023

Platform: Windows / PC

Team size : 8 people (4GD, 3GA, 2GP)

My role: Lead Game Designer.

Synopsis:
HollyShoot is a fast first person arena shooter in which the player must face hordes of enemies reminiscent of classic cinema genres such as sci-fi, western and medieval fantasy. The player must not only survive but also chain kills and do stylish eliminations in order to earn points and beat a high-score before the timer reaches zero.

My tasks:

Lead the Game Design team to establish a strong, coherent and fun gameplay loop that follows the codes of the fast fps genre.
Guide the Game Design team to always keep in mind our design philosophies during the design and production of the game.
Design a weapon arsenal that allows for singular fun gameplay but also gives the player freedom to experiment and create his own combinations.
Design fun and challenging enemies that offer different gameplay approaches to combat.
Balance the scaling of difficulty.
Create a dynamic skatepark-like level design that allows for emergent gameplay.

Game Design Philosophies

When creating Hollyshoot, my team and I established a number of design guidelines to follow in order to create our take on the Arena FPS genre.

Those guidelines are the following :

Player Agency : Giving the player the tools he'll need to create his own movement, combat and playing style was one of our main focuses when building this game. Each gameplay brick must be modular and able to be combined with other bricks in order to create emergent gameplay. Some gameplay systems are easy to learn and master, some other systems take more time and skill to be learned but they all allow for creative combinations.
Constant Movement : We wanted for the player to never stop moving. This goal guided us during the creation of the enemies and the level design of the arena. Stillness means death, if the player stops moving he will find himself in dangerous situations that will compromise his run.
Stylish Combat : We wanted to give the player the tools and the environment to have a creative approach to combat. We made our goal to build weapons, skills and enemies that allowed for a combat experience in which the player is allowed to feel like an unstoppable killing machine. With enough skill and style the player will feel borderline invincible.

Core Gameplay Loop

The player's goal is to achieve the highest possible score before being overwhelmed by waves of increasingly difficult enemies. To cope with this rising difficulty and to increase their score multiplier, players can earn combat bonuses by performing stylish eliminations to fill their fame gauge.

Hollyshoot is a scoring shooter, we wanted to keep the game's goal simple in order to reduce the mental load of the player. Adding extra objectives like capturing zones, defending payloads or activating switches would have broken the flow we wanted to create and hinder the feeling of control and constant movement we were looking for.

Player's have a Fame Gauge that allows them to obtain bonuses, provided it is filled. To fill the fame gauge, players must perform specific types of eliminations to earn medals (similar to "Call of Duty") which grant varying amounts of fame points.

Player Controller

In Hollyshoot, the player moves by running and has four movement-related abilities: a jump, a slide, a grapple, and the megaphone blast.

All movement abilities can be combined in order to gain speed, elevation and keep momentum. We gave the player the tools to take ownership of the space in his own way. Movement in Hollyshoot has a low entry barrier as each mechanic is easy to understand on its own but it also offers a high skill ceiling and a permissive learning curve.

Grapple

The grapple allows the player to attach to an element of the map and move towards it at a constant speed. This tool allow for a quick traversal of the space in a horizontal an vertical manner.

The grapple also allows for a very quick gain of speed and momentum. Grappling for even a short amount of time gives the player enough speed to kickstart a movement chain (with slides and jumps) that will allow him to dodge incoming attacks, reposition or simply enjoy the "bunny hop" mechanic that follows said interaction.

The movement direction and speed of the grapple are constant and known by the player for a couple of reasons. First, a technical reason, in the time given to develop the project it was wiser to do a simplified version of the mechanic without swings or extra features. Secondly, it gives the player a static reference to what the movement is, the grapple will always behave in a way known by the player therefore becoming second nature to them really quickly. Without randomness the tool may be less gimmicky but it adapts better to our environment in which mistakes can be heavily punished by the AI.

Megaphone Blast

The megaphone blast is a movement tool as much as it is a combat tool. It allows for offensive and defensive as it can be used both as a panic button and as a mean to keep momentum going.

The Megaphone Blast is a short-range attack that pushes and kills enemies in front of the player at a certain distance while also pushing the player in the opposite direction for a shorter distance.

Red Arrows: These indicate the direction in which enemies will be killed and pushed.

Blue Arrow: This indicates the direction in which the player will be pushed after using the megaphone blast.

Weapons

In Hollyshoot, the player has an arsenal of 3 weapons: a revolver, a minigun, and a grenade launcher.

All weapons have unlimited ammunition reserves to give the player one less thing to think about and allow him to focus on shooting and chaining kills.

Revolver

The revolver is a precise weapon that rewards the player's accuracy with a high headshot multiplier. This weapon has a magazine of 6 bullets.

The revolver is easy to learn and hard to master. Its main utility is to trim waves of enemies in a quick and precise matter but in order to do that the player must be accurate. Once mastered, the revolver becomes a force of nature that will easily become player's main gun for the majority of the game.

The revolver is a hitscan weapon. There is no physical recoil when the player shoots, only an animation. The precision level of the weapon is always the same, it shoots straight in the center of the screen.

Minigun

The minigun is a hitscan weapon that is easy to use with little to none recoil when shooting. It plays the role of the "noob" gun of the arsenal.

The minigun is a weapon that is not very accurate, inflicts low damage, and has a high rate of fire with an unlimited magazine. Each shot from the minigun has a 1/3 chance to stun.

This gun is mostly a crowd control tool that allows the player to escape dangerous situations with a low investment in combat and a deep focus on movement.

Grenade Launcher

The grenade launcher is a weapon that fires an explosive sticky projectile, which detonates a few seconds after hitting its target. This weapon has a single-grenade magazine and a slow rate of fire.

If the player is in contact with the explosion, they are pushed back, this allows for a rocket jump mechanic. The projectiles from the grenade launcher can be prematurely detonated if the player shoots them with the revolver.

The grenade launcher is a projectile-based weapon. There is no recoil when the player fires. The projectile is affected by gravity, therefore it follows a parabolic trajectory.

After using the weapon, it automatically reloads once used. The reloading process takes 1.75 seconds. The projectile detonates after 3 seconds.

Level Design

Hollyshoot's level is divided in 4 different zones, each one of them with specific gameplay characteristics :

Sci-Fi : On the ground-level there's a maze made of crystals and rocks that make on-foot movement quite challenging, the suspended asteroids can be grappled-on by the player to gain altitude and traverse the space with ease.

Western : This area has a central open corridor and houses with different levels of elevation and chokepoints on the sides making this zone a shooting gallery for the player.

Medieval : This area offers 3 levels of elevation (market, castle, tower) connected by ramps which role is to manage the enemy flow in the area. The tower is also a landmark that allows the player to traverse the map quickly when used as a take-off platform.

Cinema studio : This area connects the 3 main combat zones. It is the most "uninteresting" area gameplay wise as its main role is to be a traversal area.

Our philosophy when designing Hollyshoots main arena was to give the player a "skatepark" level that allowed him to experiment with his different skills during combat.

The level uses a circular layout to guide the player and invite him to move around the map and never stay put.

We embraced a lot of the philosophies that Kurt Loudy and Jake Campbell showcased during their GDC talk titled Embracing Push Forward Combat in DOOM to create a level that invites the player to actively engage in combat and own the space.

Ramps allow for sliding and gain of momentum, they also act as take-off platforms for the player.

Choke points create situations of tension but also allow the player to regulate the flow of enemies and create spaces to breathe.

Suspended objects give the opportunity to use the grapple in unique and meaningful ways.

Elevated vantage points offer the chance to traverse the arena very quickly if the player masters the movement tech.

Enemies

In Hollyshoot there are 3 enemies : the KNIGHT, the COWBOY and the U.F.O.

Each one of the enemies has specific behavior patterns and invites the player towards a certain combat style.

KNIGHT

The Knight is a a melee enemy that follows the player. It is the most common enemy in the game.

Individually the knight is pretty weak but once many knights gather they can become a horde and overwhelm the player.

The goal of the knight is to make the player move, the best way to deal with a horde is to constantly change positions to avoid getting stuck between a sword and a hard place.

COWBOY

The cowboy is a ranged enemy. It will follow the player and shoot at him once in range.

When attacking, the cowboy charges his attack before shooting. During the charge time, the player can shoot at the cowboy's weapon to interrupt the attack and kill him instantly.

The cowboy is not only a constant threat but offers a rewarding skill-check to the player.

U.F.O

The UFO is the most uncommon enemy in the game. It is a flying sentry gun that will teleport near the player if he gets too far from it.

The UFO serves as an anti-camping mechanic as it will follow the player without a pathfinding algorithm. This behavior invites the player to focus the UFO which gives breathing room to the other enemies to reach the player.

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