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Overview

The following page discusses the design decisions behind the daggers that have been created within the game.

Final Design

Stats - Hera's Dagger

• Damage: 9
• Cooldown: 0.5 seconds
• Attack type: Melee
• Level: 2
• Craftable? Yes
• Materials - 1x Gold, 1x Steel

Dagger Name	Image
Hera's Dagger

Stats - Athena's Dagger

• Damage: 7.5
• Cooldown: 0.7 seconds
• Attack type: Melee
• Level: 2
• Craftable? Yes
• Materials - 1x Gold, 1x Platinum

Dagger Name	Image
Athena's Dagger

Design Inspirations

Inspiration Number	Image	Comments
Inspiration 1		The source of inspiration for the daggers came from the concept of Atlantis daggers as seen below. Weapons were usually covered in gold or jewelry to represent the rich nature of their country. Furthermore, since daggers were meant to be stored in a relatively small place, such as their side pocket, they were small in comparison to swords. Typically, they were around 30cm in length and 10cm wide.
Inspiration 2		Though this was a double-sided dagger, the idea behind sprint one was to create a simple one-sided dagger. None the less, this inspiration could be considered within future sprints when items can be crafted together.
Inspiration 3		Though this variation was more on a spear, the ultimate goal was to take the tip of the spear and make that into a dagger. Furthermore, considering that crafting was an option, this would be an item to adopt for future sprints.

Phase 1: Sketching

An iterative process was approached when completing the daggers. As such, initial research was completed as seen above before the completion of sketches. Inspirations on different ideas and models of daggers were gathered and sketches can be seen within the following pictures. Furthermore, several sketches allowed us to get inspiration into seeing which dagger could be used to be iterated into a higher level as the game progressed.

Phase 2: User Testing

During this phase of the design, I wanted to achieve and understand the designing component of the combat items going to be created from a user's POV. In order to do this, user testing was done on users that had played games involving melee weapons. A set of questions were asked with regards to the elements of what materials the daggers should be made of alongside the statistics of the weapon. Specifically, users were asked how they perceived a dagger's weight, damage and cooldown should be like. All these statistics were then created to be implemented within the codebase of the game.

Note: A copy of the layout for the user testing guide can be found on the wiki page User Testing Weapons

User Feedback

The user feedback provided further supported the ideology of my original designs drawn. However, in order to adapt to the changes implemented by the story team, an additional question regarding the resources of the weapon was questioned. This changed the answers of users slightly specifically when it came to the design of the blade of the daggers. To elaborate on this, users originally had answered that dagger tips should be created using iron/steel as a base. However, upon providing them with the insight of having an unlimited amount of access to gold, platinum, and other highly valued materials, they changed their answers to gold and iron. One user summed up this question by saying that "weapons should look more fancy and attractive when provided with higher class materials." As such, there were rounds of iterations to scale up the daggers.

Colour Scheme

Due to the nature of level two weapons, the colour scheme for this weapon was based off colours of Gold, Silver and Steel.

Phase 3: Weapon Pixel Drawing

Original Layout

Iteration One Layout

As we note from the above images, the daggers have been upscaled to incorporate more expensive materials that would be prominent within the upper/ middle class of Atlantis. A mix of gold and iron has been utilsied within the first iteration of the design.

Future Directions

The future directions of the daggers would see more gems being added into the weapons to give it more of a higher-class look. However, in order to incorporate a more comedic perspective based on the storyline, the daggers could also iterate to implement a more 'toilet themed' or 'plumber themed' image. For example, instead of designing a relatively impressive, dagger, we could touch it off with some toilet paper hanging off the top of it.

Weapon Attack Animation

After the creation of this weapon, we proceeded to create the animation for this weapon. In order for the design of the weapon animation to be integrated, we closely collaborated with the player team in order to come to a final design choice on the weapon effects.

Hera and Athena Design inspirations

There were two main design inspirations for this, both of which had significant impacts upon the animations of our designs. These are as seen below.

Inspiration Number	Image	Explanation
Inspiration 1		This animation was considered as one of our inspirations as we really liked the way the animation seemed to flow. To elaborate, the swinging path of the animation seemed very smooth which is what our team wanted to imitate. Furthermore, we also took inspiration and considered the lightly toned colours of the swing. This would later be user tested on to attain a definitive answer.
Inspiration 2		The inspiration taken from this animation was the pathing attack. To elaborate, that swinging path of the animation is sharp, increasing width on impact, easily showing an attack animation. Furthermore, the hand movement of the player gave a good understanding on how the player would interact with such an animation.

Hera and Athena Sketching

There were two major sketching phases throughout this sprint. This was because the idea was originally to design the weapon animation together with the body of the player sprite that was provided by team 06 - Player Team. However, after consideration of what the skills team had already implemented and as advised by team 06 of their user testing, we concluded that it would be much better to create the weapon animation to overlay on top of the player so that it would not matter what changes were made to the player sprite.

Sketch 1
Sketch 2

Hera Pixel Art Animation

Iteration Name	Sprite Sheet	Giff
Pre-Overhaul Weapon Animation
Iterated Weapon Animation
Iterated Weapon Animation
Final Design

Athena Pixel Art Animation

Iteration Name	Sprite Sheet	Giff
Iterated Weapon Animation
Iterated Weapon Animation
Final Design

Hera User Testing

The user testing questions can be found here.

Toward the completion of this task, user testing was completed in order to attain a better understanding of what improvements could be made to the animation. The goal of the user testing was mainly to get a feel for how users thought the pathing of the dagger swings were like and also to get a better view on whether the pathing colour should have been changed.

Hera User Feedback

Raw data from user feedbacks can be found here.

As discussed above, during the first preliminary animation created, we were under the idea that we would animate the player hands together with the weapon to get a nice synchronisation occuring. However, after conversing with team 06 within the Weapon Animation on Player - 110 thread, we decided it would be best to overlay it ontop of the player. This is because it allowed for lesser dependency on the player team as it seemed rather irrational for the weapon team to reiterate their design everytime the player was changed. Furthermore, doing this also allowed for us to produce animations relatively quicker which is what inspired the first iteration changes seen above. Though we traded design flow and aesthetics, it allowed us to iterate upon the designs a lot faster as well as set a basis for future weapons to be created in the upcoming sprints.

Based on the user feedback, there is a strong indication that users prefer the weapon pathway animation to follow through with the colours of the weapons. Further, users do not prefer brighter colours in the pathway as it causes uneasiness and weapon buff confusion, which is seen in the second and third iterations of the design. Furthermore, players also seemed to respond positively to the pathing pattern of the design, which was a great point. Having said this, there was a minority of individuals who said that the pathing of the daggers seemed to look like a rocket blasting off. Since this was a minority, it was decided that this was perhaps an opportunity to iterate the design yet once more in future sprints. This would include having more frames of the colour transition in the swing for a gradient effect on the animation if time permitted.

Athena User Feedback

Overall user testing results came back with a strong indication that users had a positive reaction to the Athena Dagger path swing. There was one comment were how thick the swing animations were. As such, to address this issue and still adhere to the weapon attack swing with Hera Dagger path swing, the opacity that was around the swing was removed. Although a small change it did not highlight how large the swing is. Reflecting on this change, it has allowed the Athena dagger animation swing to look less thick whilst still similar to the Hera dagger animation, which provides more value to the game within the design aspect.

It was considered to perhaps make the swing thickness of the swing smaller however this would made the Athena's swing animation too different to Hera’s swing animation. Further, the issue could also be due to the nature of the prototype in testing as it appeared bigger than it would be displayed in the game. This was highlighted in another individual comment on how it was hard to see the full context as the prototype did not have the player interaction with it. This is something that needs to consider in future user testing, on how we can include more valuable prototypes. Background context may no longer be enough for the tester as the game has become more implemented.

Future Directions

Hera Dagger Animation

As mentioned from user feedback, a possible option for exploration would be making the swing colour more of a gradient effect of the dagger colour. This would lessen the probability of individuals thinking that the animation path looks like a rocket blasting off and create a smoother transition for the animation. Further, the feedback received on how buff animation could differ from the original swing needs to be considered as the base of the implementation of the weapon buff swing.

Athena Dagger Animation

Regarding future iterations of this weapon, we would like to see the possibility of removing one of the daggers (only if user testing feedback agrees with it). The reasoning behind this is user testing feedback from the Preliminary Weapon Check in found that 7 weapons for the game are reasonable. As we have reached our limit, a weapon must be removed to have space for an epic weapon. Having an epic weapon within the game could add more value by adding more complexity to the reward system of the game design.

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Author

• Caleb Ang, Nisha Vashist
• GitHub: PurrplePandaa, NishaVashist0
• Discord: Annyeong Haseyo#8083, Nisha Vashist #4207
• Slack: Caleb Ang, Nisha Vashist