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GDC 2022 Session Viewer

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Independent Game Summit: These Non-Violent Delights: Designing 'Stonefly's' Combat

Mel Ramsden  (Technical Game Designer, Flight School Studio)

Location: Room 2005, West Hall

Date: Monday, March 21

Time: 1:20 pm - 1:50 pm

Pass Type: All Access Pass, Summits Pass, Independent Games Summit Pass - Get your pass now!

Topic: Independent Games

Format: Session

Viewing Experience: In-Person

Vault Recording: Video

Audience Level: No

This talk covers the process, goals, challenges and lessons learned for Stonefly's non-lethal action adventure style combat, from a gameplay and narrative design perspective. Stonefly's Technical Game Designer, Mel Ramsden will discuss how the team approached these challenges using theme and setting to drive the decisions behind the systemic design of the combat, how these constraints led them to making a microscale mech game where you engage in king of the hill style arena battles, and how they designed a variety of non-lethal wind-based abilities the player could utilize in these battles to combat bugs - creating a gameplay loop that felt exciting, challenging but ultimately, non-violent.

Takeaway

The key takeaways for this talk include: A fresh perspective on how to maintain the tone of a product while still delivering on an action based experience, highlighting the value of targeted balancing, and how to avoid a lack of clarity while designing action based combat.

Intended Audience

This talk is targeted for any Designer who is interested in Gameplay/ System Design, Narrative Design and working in the top down action adventure genre for games.