Airframe Assault - The Verdict

This project is built upon an existing project for the previous "mechjam" (with permission from host), and as a result has made that game project obsolete now. As most of the gameplay philosophy and mechanics are the same, the text below is largely the same from the original project page.

​

A short game demo I created as an entry to the "mechjam 5" game jam hosted on itch.io. My main inspiration for the jams were the Armored core games, the Ace Combat games and Project Nimbus. I worked on this game with a friend doing the design, programming animation set up and other technical aspects myself, while a friend worked on the modelling and animation.

​

I learnt more with this project, such as finally trying out unreal engine 5 rather than use 4 again. Additionally, I also had to program an AI to move in 3D space as unreal's AI navigation doesn't work in 3D space by default. As well as trying to add a friendly AI, as the previous games I've made have no friendly AI, and I think having allies in games can be a bit nice.

​

With this new entry being built upon an existing project, I added mission/campaign mode to add more content, alongside the survival mode from the original project. Each mission features different gameplay styles to keep things fresh, for example, a simple bomber intercept as an intro mission, attacking an enemy carrier group at sea before an unexpected development in the mission, taking out radars within the time limit to avoid detection etc.

​

I wanted to estabilish threats first, with the player being forced to retreat due to those, before taking care of them in later missions. For example a long range cannon that disrupts a mission and shoots down many allies, before a mission to take it out later. Or being forced to retreat by an elite enemy ace squadron, before defeating them later. I didn't have the chance to make some of these however due to time constraints of the jam.

​

With the boss fight, against an enemy ace squadron, I wanted to give that "anime mecha" feel with fighting against skilled pilots rather than sponges. So I made their AI manoeuvre rapidly and constantly reposition, as well as being rather evasive. To help some players keep up (as they move around a lot and very quickly), I added a camera lock on that visually tracks targets, in addition to the normal soft lock on that helps homes projectiles onto targets. I also took the players "choice" into account, with different dialogue if they take out the squad leader before the other members, or vice versa.

​​