Obelisk

Overview

Obelisk is a 4-player, split-screen, competitive, action game. In Obelisk, two teams face off against each other, each team consists of a Spellcaster and a Rogue. The teams battle for resources in an attempt to construct their obelisk first! I worked on this game during my time at Daydream Interactive. This game was made alongside our schooling over the span of about 8 months. The game was finished in April 2020 but was not released on itch.io until 2021. A version of the game with networking was also built from scratch but had some studdering issues so never got released.

Download it here

Design

Classes

Each team consists of two players, each playing a different class. The Spellcaster, and the Rogue.

The Rogue is agile. They move noticeably faster than spellcasters. Rogues have an ability that causes them to dash forward in a straight line. This ability effectively doubles their movement speed for the duration. Rogues are noncombatants. Their goal is to collect resources as fast as possible and return them to their team’s resource chest.

The Spellcaster on the other hand is a slow, beefy unit. The spellcaster can shoot fireballs out of their hands. They also use their magic to construct the obelisk using the resources the rogue has gathered for their team.

We wanted each class to feel vastly different from the other and I think we accomplished this goal. However, there is definitely more we could have done, and many tweaks we could have made to make the classes feel better. Some examples of some things we would have tweaked in hindsight are the spellcaster fireballs to make them larger, as well as the rogue’s dash mechanic, changing the field of view, as well as adding a screen effect. We had a screen effect, but after changing our render pipeline so we could use Shader Graph, that effect stopped working and we did not have time to fix it.

We would have added some more mechanics to the classes given time. We wanted the spellcaster to have multiple spells. These included ice traps or barriers in order to slow down the opposing rogue. As for the rogue, we wanted to give them a smoke bomb to help them sneak around the map or to run away from an opposing spellcaster. To make the rogue feel more interesting to play, we could have had the rogue move more slowly if carrying a bunch of resources.

Level Design

We wanted our level to be equal for both teams. However, we wanted to add some verticality to it in order to make it feel less flat and make for a more interesting visual. Originally we had a maze-like level. The level contained hills and pathways. However, after some playtesting, we decided it was far too big and complex. Even with a minimap, it was easy for players to get lost, or to use the environment in ways we did not intend.

After much discussion, we decided to change it up and use floating islands instead. By implementing the islands we made the map far more open. By opening up the map we found that players would almost never get lost and we were able to remove the minimap thus freeing up a significant chunk of the players’ vision. We also used the islands in order to group specific resources together. The goal with this was to force engagement with the opposing team. While this did work, in hindsight the characters and respawn times needed some tweaks to make it more effective. The fireballs were very difficult to aim and the respawns were nearly instant. This led to very little consequence for players when getting attacked.