Update 1.9

Serpent Moon

During 1.9 I worked on the serpent moon event gameplay. Getting this all done was quite the ride and my first experience contributing to a large collaborative effort across different disciplines. I worked on getting the snake baskets and snake altars in game for the event.

Snake Basket

Design
The snake baskets were the collection mechanic of this event. Its a basket full of snakes that attack if you are not careful. The player collects the snakes by performing an interaction and then gets rewarded with event points and snakes. Later the snakes can be sacrificed at the snake altars to convert their snakes into event points. I made the snake damage surrounding AI if they made enough noise and it led to some cool systemic interactions. For example an immolator expoding when its bitten by a snake.

Implementation

The biggest hurdle to overcome with the snakes was the animation setup. The snakes needed to come out of different holes depending on where the players were standing. I was able calculate this by using some vector math. Setting this entity up was quite the challenge since it was my first entity in an engine I had never worked in. In the end it turned out quite well.

Snake Altars

Design
The snake altars were the counterpart to the snake baskets. The snakes collected by players could be sacrificed here. Sacrificing would convert the snakes in to event points with a 2x modifier. Therefore these altars were very attractive to boost your event progression, but these altars were located near boss compounds. This caused sacrificing to be dangerous activity since other players would also converge on them.


Implementation

The altars may not have been as intricate, but they presented a significant challenge as it was my first experience working in CRYENGINE. The main challenge was creating an entity that allowed multiple players to interact with it simultaneously.

Community Reception

These two features were well received by the community. Players were asking for more in depth event gameplay. Before I joined, the design team already worked on the design for this event to include this feedback. Players enjoyed the mechanics and it was fulfilling to see all the positive feedback and memes about the snakes. I’ll leave you here with my favorite clip that popped up that shows a player interacting with the snake basket.

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1.10 | The Stalker Beetle