TOKYO RHYTHM FIGHTER
^Original Frames used for animation, with each frame played separately using a coroutine that waits for a fraction of a beat to ensure consistency. Utilized sprite slicing and a custom animation controller script to iterate through each sprite. While this was ultimately changed, the animation system was useful for other animated assets as well.
Hurt
Harmonize
Miss
Hit
Center Effect animations also utilized the same animation system. I worked to smoothly implement each animation by understanding where the script needs to be called, such as during a successful hit, hurt, harmonize, and mess up, ensuring everything is on the beat. These animations can override each other, creating a nice splash of color as notes are being hit!
TOKYO RHYTHM FIGHTER is a rhythm-based fighting game, where Sola, fights with music against an ex-band member, Sforzanda, in order to reshape a broken bond. Players have to hit notes, create combos, hold chords, and harmonize with Sforzanda’s chords in order to fight!
Using the SCRUM methodology, our team frequently held meetings to discuss tasks, maintained backlogs, and followed the sprint system of designing and collaborating. As a contributor familiar with both programming and art, I focused on bridging the gaps in implementation for art, UI, and programming assets. I worked on the implementation of art assets, such as characters, and also programming animation controllers. Additionally, I created UI assets such as the accuracies, health bars, and damage numbers and implemented the speech bubbles for the tutorial.
In terms of Scrum development strategy, I worked to update the sprint and product backlogs for my own tasks as well as discuss overall design goals and improvements for programming and art aspects of the project.
Gameplay
TRF focuses on players’ freedom to mix and match the moves given and to make combos. Players can give either a short attack, hold attack, or parry/harmonize input whenever the fret indicators reach the middle. Making your own chords in unison with the music is the key to playing along effectively! Features a short tutorial and boss fight.
Animation
I first created the foundations for an animation system for our characters, VFX, and other motions. The initial design revolved around playing a set of frames between each beat but was later changed to sprite changing for each character. This original animation system, which iterates through a list of several sprites was then used for the center hit/parry/miss icons used to indicate player actions.
User Interface
One of my major roles was in UI implementation. I created new accuracy meters for player beat accuracy and also added a hold icon for when players hold attacks. Additionally, I created player/enemy health bars to show immediate and lerping damage numbers for the boss and player. Most of the UI additions and changes were made to resolve clarity issues that were prevalent in playtesting.
Tutorial
For the tutorial, I worked on implementing a team-made speech bubble system, in which I inputted text instructions on how to hold notes, harmonize, and fight your opponent. The text and interlinking of bubbles between different scenes and sections were not only important for tutorializing the gameplay, but for further implementation of character dialogue in the intro as well.
Clarity
One of the primary iterative focuses throughout this game was the emphasis on gameplay clarity. Playtesting feedback proved that as a rhythm game, there were still necessary steps needed to clarify gameplay. I personally worked on the center UI clarity, health bars, audio adjustments, and overall UI positioning in order to best illustrate when combos are created and when attacks are successful. As a team, we collaborated on how these adjustments can be made to give better focus to hitting the beats in the center, with numerous discussions, iterations, and playtesting done to improve the game feel.