The Abandoned: A turn-based RPG that replaces RNG with target practice.

The Abandoned started as an experiment to create a “unique 2.5D look” for a game with unique monster illustrations and eventually combined with an aim game mechanic I was prototyping.

Team

Casey (me): Technical Game Design, UI/UX, Music
Collin: Illustration (contracted)

Engine: Unity
Project Length: 7 months (Vertical Slice)

Game Design – Aim Game

Whenever you select an ability, the amount of damage you do is based on how well you perform in aim game. The more correct targets you hit, and the closer you are to the exact center of the target, the closer you are to full damage. This provides for a very high skill ceiling while still allowing you to be “good enough”.

You have a limited time Sometimes there are targets that hurt you if you hit them. The targets can be extremely small or extremely big to fluctuate difficulty. Different enemies have different types of target mechanics. Different abilities you have have different ways of utilizing this aim game mechanic.

Turn-Based RPG Menus

Each turn you can select a combination of abilities, provided you have enough points to use them. You can build up points using a mechanic called focus, which is basically a “defend” move that lowers incoming damage by slowing down the enemy attack, giving you more time to react.

Each of the abilities are based on emotions to play into a “mental battle” dynamic.

Shaders

Because I was looking for a unique look, this was a great project to experiment shaders. This was the first project I wrote my own shader from scratch. Because I wanted to make a circle that starts as big as the screen and shrinks towards a target and you have to match the timing and click it when it reaches the target circle, I needed a way to have a circle that could be as big as the screen and shrink down while maintaining the same stroke weight and have no visual artifacting. After trying many techniques, including playing with vector graphics integration, I landed on a custom shader that draws and anti-aliases a circle.

A mockup that imagined the battle taking place within a dialogue window.

More Images