Combat UX Design
I wore many hats while developing Spirit & Steel, but the aspects I worked the most on and that shine the brightest are my contributions as Combat Designer.
The Problem:
When I joined the Spirit & Steel team, the combat was intuitively engaging, but too simple. All combat in Spirit & Steel consisted of pulling the left or right triggers on the controller to throw a punch instantly. With little to no cooldown, playtesters loved spamming the triggers furiously during combat. While this is exactly what we wanted players to do, we encountered a few issues: unlocking new elemental punches wouldn't feel like a significant upgrade, and players saw no need to change weapons for different fights. So my goal as a designer was: How do we make the weapons feel meaningfully different to use while still keeping the button-mashing playstyle that folks love?
The Solution:
To fix this, I proposed adding rhythm and texture to the punches: A.K.A. a combo system. Each punch thrown by the player would automatically become part of a sequence of punches, with three different types of punches being thrown. For example, the water element combo would be 1-1-2-2-3, and the fire element combo would be 1-2-1-2. Each type of punch had its own timing, damage, and animation, and the controls would remain unchanged.
The Results:
There’s nothing like seeing a design come to fruition! While we were showcasing Spirit & Steel at Washington State Gaming Expo, it was amazing to watch players of all ages enjoy mashing buttons and making robots explode! Kids especially seemed to take to the mashing-button strategy instantly, and some were literally jumping up and down while exploding robots. Sometimes all a good mechanic needs is some game feel consideration to make it truly shine!
