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Overview

The following page discusses the design decisions behind the trident created within the game.

Final Design

Poseidon's Trident

Stats - Poseidon's Trident

• Damage: 25
• Cooldown: 1.5 second
• Attack type: Melee
• Level: 2
• Craftable? Yes
• Materials - 3x Gold, 1x Steel

Design Inspirations

The starting point for the trident is a blank slate. A style guide for it had to be created, which was derived from:

1. The following images are some high-quality examples of how tridents have been represented throughout society and history. This will be the base reference for the design to be implemented.

From the images, it can be derived that the trident is usually taller than the owner and held straight by them. It is also usually made from gold, brass or steel.

2. Further background research on trident history was conducted. Specifically, Poseidon, who in ancient Greek methodology is noted as the God of the Sea. Poseidon's weapon, the Trident of Poseidon, is the most significant source of inspiration for the style of the weapon. Notable information that needs to be considered for the design is Poseidon's main form of attack with the trident was striking the ground.

Phase 1: Sketching

An iterative process was approached when completing the trident. With the design documentation and style guide of the trident, inspirations on different ideas and models of the trident were gathered and sketched out, as seen below.

Each sketch is similar in design, with a few different alternatives, improving each attempt.

The following images have been adapted from the above sketches into two possible trident forms.

Phase 2: User testing

At this design stage, the game's story had been changed, significantly impacting the design of the two possible forms of the trident. Due to this change, it was necessary to conduct user testing to achieve and understand the designing component for the combat items from a user's POV. To do this, interview-style user testing was done on users that had played games involving melee weapons. A set of questions were asked regarding the elements of what materials the trident should be made of alongside the weapon's statistics. Specifically, users were asked how they perceived a trident's weight, damage, and cooldown. All these statistics were then created to be implemented within the game's codebase.

Note: A copy of the layout for the user testing guide can be found on the wiki page User Testing Weapons Note: the image used for the user testing was the two-pixel images shown above.

User Feedback

The results suggest that users expect the trident to have the highest attack damage out of the other two weapons. It can be derived from the results that the trident needs to look richer to reflect not only the story of the game but also for them to know the trident had the heaviest attack damage visually.

Further, some users expressed confusion about how the weapon would be used for attack due to the straight positioning of the trident. Considering this feedback and a discussion with the player team, the player trident position should be changed to a 45-degree angle, and its form of attack to be an upswing. It also sparked the idea of the trident, perhaps in later sprints having another form of attack, striking the ground.

Colour Scheme

Considering the game style document, the user feedback and the nature of level two weapons, the colour scheme for this weapon was based on colours of Gold, Silver and Steel.

Phase 3: Weapon Pixel Drawing (Implementing user testing feedback)

The following image is the first international of the changes based on the user testing feedback:

This design was reflected back on the user testing feedback within the team, and it was decided the design needed a change to visualise and show it was the largest attack damage weapon.

On top of the changes discussed within the team for the design of the trident, the image above shows the trident has been upscaled to incorporate more expensive materials that would be prominent within the upper/ middle class of Atlantis. The position angle of the trident has also been changed to show the upswing attack of the trident within the first iteration of the design.

Future Directions (Sprint 1)

As mentioned above, the future direction of the trident could see a design to show another form of attack, striking the ground. It could also be morphed into the current design by creating an animation in which the player holds the trident at a straight position while walking and then animated to the 45-degree angle when used for attack.

Also, to incorporate a more comedic perspective based on the storyline, the trident could also iterate to implement more 'toilet-themed' or 'plumber-themed' elements. For example, instead of designing a luxurious trident, we could have plunger heads instead of arrowheads in the trident.

Trident Update (Sprint 3)

In sprint 3, before commencing the animation style and design component it was decided among the team members that the Trident should undergo another design iteration. Although some of the user feedback from previous sprints indicated a more 'toilet-theme', when this concept was tested again results indicated that since this weapon is Poseidon's trident, it should remain gold and be representative of his character.

Hence in considering this, more research was done into styles and colours based off the original design.

Design #1:

Design #2:

Feedback from these designs led to the final design which incorporated more elements of blue and darker edges to reinforce the sharpness of the edges.

Final Iteration:

Trident Animation

I started by searching for inspiration as to how animations look in pixel art and specifically how does a trident move or is used in attack.

Inspiration Image	Description	Link
	This image was one of the early inspiration images I sourced. It was one concept of how a trident could be used in a spearing fashion.	https://polycount.com/discussion/142969/animation
	This particular animation inspired the little droplets of water which I incorporated into my animation design. The way the water comes off the head of the trident as a trident is a weapon of the sea.	https://www.talenthouse.com/item/2045647/91e7b4f4

In designing the animation for the trident I began by sketching out how I imagine the player would hold and interact with the trident upon attack. Based off the inspiration images I found, I decided to animate a stabbing motion upwards with water droplets which filter out from the trident.

Iteration #1:

The initial iteration adds a circular halo effect to the trident upon stabbing for a more dramatic effect compared to the initial sketches I created. This first animation was subject to user testing, where feedback indicated that the attack needed to be more forceful and aggressive. For the full user testing results please click here.

Some specific quotes from the testing regarding the animation such as "use more thrust to show that the trident is stabbing someone" and "even more moment would be nice" as well as "faster/aggressive" highlighted the need for a more impactful animation.

Based on this feedback I developed a second iteration to incorporate the feedback from the user testing. This resulted in the following final design of the trident animation. I needed to adjust the size so that the animation has more room to attack, given the size of the trident in the game. Other changes I made included making the attack upward faster and when the trident charges upward more water droplets fall and the halo is larger and more noticeable.

Final Design

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Authors

Sprint 1

• Nisha Vashist
• GitHub: NishaVashist0
• Discord: nishavashist#4270
• Slack: Nisha Vashist

Author Sprint 3

• Madi Feddema
• GitHub: @madifeddema
• Discord: madi-feddema#3384
• Slack: Madi Feddema