Although this game is intended to primarily be a third person shooter, it is not uncommon for such games to feature some form of melee weapons. These weapons have much shorter range than others of course but often make up for this by dealing very high damage if you manage to get close enough to use them. Some examples include the knife from Call of Duty, which is an instant kill in most iterations, and the power sword from Halo, which normally kills in just a couple of hits.
As we do not have a damage system in the game, I had to be a little more creative when it came to designing an effective melee weapon. Like melee weapons in other shooters, we needed something that could give high reward for taking the risk of using such a short range weapon. The most effective way to defeat an opponent in Knock Off is of course to knock them off, so a weapon applying very high force to enemies can be really strong. As my reference above shows, I am a big fan of Halo and so when considering forceful melee weapons, my mind went to the iconic gravity hammer.
As such, I opted to make our melee weapon a great big hammer. This could be stylised in a variety of ways depending on what assets we can found. Personally I envision it as a big, two-handed mallet reminiscent of a carnival game such as whack-a-mole or test-your-strength, but more colourful and cartoonish, to the point where it looks as though it is inflatable or made of soft rubber. This would evoke the feeling of enemies being bounced away rather than smashed and injured.
The primary attack is designed to be used simply to knock enemies flying. The secondary attack is a bit more nuanced however. Sometimes knocking an enemy backwards isnt always your best option. If you and an enemy are both airbourne over a danger zone, then you would want to knock them downwards to secure the elimination. The secondary attack allows you to do this in a very satisfying way. I didnt want the secondary attack to be useless outside of this scenario though and the idea of knocking an enemy up into the air was very appealing. As such, the secondary attack causing enemies to bounce was introduced.
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