Shooty McShot
ROLE
Lead Designer, Developer, Programmer, Art
DESCRIPTION
In this sci-fi FPS made in Unity, you play as Shooty McShot, a soldier who crash-landed on an alien planet. Using a special gemstone Shooty found, you can teleport to special floating gems, switch between alien positions, and push aliens away, all the while the planet collapses under your feet.
YEAR
2020
GENRE
Action, FPS
PLATFORM
PC
View the game
Design Process
The process of designing Shooty McShots was a relatively simple one. As I originally intended to test my programming capabilities, I decided that while I was creating a simple FPS, I should aim to create an experience that makes the gameplay feel smooth and dynamic. So, once I finished recreating common FPS mechanics--shooting, aiming, reloading, and basic movement--I got to work on designing game mechanics and how I wanted a level to play out.
​
​
​
​​
The first step was deciding what I would do differently. After some quick brainstorming, I decided to theme my game as an escape from an alien planet that was slowly crumbling down-- so far, pretty basic stuff.
However, I have noticed that I personally quite enjoy when a character's main powers center around a single object that is necessary for many of the game's mechanics. Krato's Leviathan Ax in God of War and Cappy in Super Mario Odyssey, for example, act as essential tools for most of a game's puzzles and problems. I decided to try my hand at that, creating the Alien Crystal Relic, which would act as the player's "power object".
​
​
God Of War, Sony, 2018
Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo, 2017
So now, on top of having a gun, the player had special abilities that could be brought out by the Relic. But I had not yet decided what abilities would be useful to them.
​
Once again I tried to look at what worked with games that use "power objects". Both the Leviathan Ax and Cappy could fling at enemies and return to the user like a boomerang, help solve puzzles, pull levers, and overall make the character feel incredibly powerful, whether they were a short Italian man or a giant, godly juggernaut. In an effort to recreate this, I gave the Relic three main uses, adding mechanics that I believe would fit best with an FPS.
Focusing heavily on swift movement, I decided to first give the player the ability to teleport. The relic would shoot out a yellow gem from inside of itself, hit a blue spinning gem that I placed in the environment, and allow the player to teleport to it. Simple enough. I decided to take this one step further, though, and made it so that if the yellow gem hit an alien, the player would switch places with it, which could give them an advantage or allow them to reach spots that did not have spinning gems at all.
With a limited scope, I allowed myself to incorporate two more of my ideas that seemed relatively easy. I made it so the yellow gem could be used as a light source when held outside of the Relic, kind of as a natural flashlight, and replaced a regular pistol-whip melee attack with a defensive shield bash that also originates from the gemstone. This shield could block oncoming projectiles, as well as push enemies away.
​
Altogether, this led to a game that was pretty fluid in its movement and has a lot of potential if I ever decide to pursue it further. It also taught me a great lesson about learning from good game designers, such as taking one mechanic and experimenting with it.
Somehow I was able to make a simple FPS a little more exciting, and that was very satisfying.