Stellarune is an action strategy role-playing game debut for our indie studio Mergician Productions.
Platform: Unreal Engine
Status: Ongoing
Team Size: 6
Stellarune
Sbrout
Fire spells add up to 3 burn stacks, then damage enemies a burst and burn effect.
Aether spells are neutral abilities used for defensive purposes and basic attacks.
Stellarune began with an inquiry, how can we improve upon the rogue-like action strategy formula captured by games like MegaMan Battle Network and One Step From Eden?
Trailer
Stellarune focuses on balancing luck and reaction timing, with players rolling soul dice to cast magic spells while facing off against mana-corrupted creatures to ascend.,
Players use WASD to move and UIOP to fire spells.
Check out the steam page for any further updates on release!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2581110/Stellarune/
Getting Started
Taking on the role of a technical designer, I shifted my attention to the implementation and design of player abilities and enemies to start on the proof of concept for an improved action strategy rogue-like game.
To create a game that successfully implements action and strategic gameplay, I aimed to program spells that invite players to create custom “builds” while also having varied enemy AI to make each encounter unique and replayable.
Fire
Enemies
The following enemies move set utilizes UE5 blueprints and behavior trees, running tasks for each unique enemy attack.
I conducted quality assurance testing to ensure that each enemy’s attacks were effective, visually interesting, and telegraphed. The following attacks are for 3 enemies, 2 enhanced enemies, and a boss, with more on the way!
Shy bone-shelled creatures that fire a seemingly endless wave of concentrated energy. Ribbeam burrows underground to temporarily hide from the player’s spells.
Mischievous globules of living algae and plant matter that expels magical arcs. Sbrouts bury themselves and seep through the ground for a sneak attack behind the player’s position.
PVP
While the spell design and enemy creation were crucial for beginning to capture our core proof of concept, Player vs Player combat was another important implementation for added features and interesting gameplay.
Here I focused on adding Xbox controller functionality as well as testing and modifying player spells, status effects, and hit registration for Player VS Player combat.
Soulless mages that steal the source of magic from other slain mage’s souls. He fires multiple elemental projectile spells in quick succession.
Aggressive and fast insects that shoot stingers and fly across the board. Direflies can sting their enemies and destroy projectiles just by flying
through them.
The first guardian of the Soul Sanctum. Mryga can alter the earth and sky, summoning rays of light, crystal projectiles, small black holes, and earthquake ruptures to extinguish its foes.
Hulking mushroom ogres that corner their enemies with toxic mushroom gas and huge fists. Bludspores brings force their enemies closer via toxic gas while using his punches to inflict knockback.
Lightning spells add a charge to the player, scaling their lightning damage percentage.
Ribbeam
Aether
Lightning
Making Magic
Based on initial mockups by our lead game designer (May Li).
Fire spells add burn stack UI, which when full, deals a burst of damage and instantiates a lingering burn effect.
Lightning spells scale the player’s attack, causing increased damage for other lightning spells.
Aether spells are basic spells and can offer essential protection from enemy attacks.
Next Steps
While this progress has been good for capturing our core concept, we are still working on the next set of player spells, enemies, new regions, and improved game-loop.
Overall, I aim to continue to lead contributions in programming, quality assurance, and debugging efforts. Currently our project is on hiatus, but we are looking forward to excited moves in the future!