BLOOD SONG
DESCRIPTION
Blood Song is an underwater action-adventure game, with a combat system that requires players to match the pitch of notes in a musical score. Designed with an original music score that plays in harmony with the enemies the player is currently fighting against.
A twist on an action rhythm game, BLOODSONG entices players to use their musical pitch-matching ear as a form of combat. Listen to enemies’ bloodsongs–that is, their main musical melody–in order to learn how to defeat them. As you explore the atmospheric undersea world of the sirens, face off against biting anglerfish and cheeky crabs, all in order to get Mari, a Siren princess with a rebellious nature to the stage. And prove, once and for all, that nothing is a match for teenage angst.
ROLE: LEAD DESIGNER
My role was Lead Designer on this team project comprised of artist, designers, and programmers from Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. During pre-production I was responsible for managing and prioritizing task for all designers on the team, as well as presenting the core game pitch.
During development I iterate upon the games design through prototyping gameplay and gathering feedback through playtesting. I focused primarily on the game's combat, enemy AI, and player controls systems. My technical task focused on integrating these systems to interact and communicate with the games music and audio. in order to have combat actions match the musical score. The audio and music were controlled by integrating an external MIDI of our games custom soundtracks and then a C++ component that would respond to in-game events such as the player locking on to enemies and attacking. Enemy AI also made use of behavior trees that would executes based on conditions such as the timing of notes in the music track, player proximity, and enemy specific attack behaviors. My favorite part of this project was the iteration of this experimental style of combat to find the games "fun" factor.
YEAR
2023
PLATFORM
GENRE
ACTION/ADVENTURE
PC
