Devlog 3: Sean Jeffries: Spell Creation

This week I was designing and implementing two exciting new water-based spells for SpellStorm: Water Wave and Water Dash. Each spell enhances both combat and movement dynamics, providing fresh opportunities for strategic gameplay.

Water Wave

The goal of this spell was to create an area-of-effect (AoE) spell that pushes enemies away from the player. The spell's functionality centers around applying an outward force on all nearby enemies when activated, which mimics the physics of a crashing wave. The biggest challenge has been to calculate the direction to launch each individual enemy. Currently all enemies are being launched in the same direction regardless of relative location to the player. After iterating through different push force values, the spell now feels powerful but uncontrollable, giving a fun ability to control the flow of combat, but imperfect.

Water Dash

This spell is a movement-based spell that allows players to dash quickly in a targeted direction. This spell complements the other water abilities by giving players fast mobility options, useful for both engaging and escaping combat. The development process involved using Unreal’s Launch Character function to propel the player forward, making sure the launch force felt responsive without breaking immersion. Challenges included using the gameplay ability system to trigger particle effects and implementing the ability to control dash direction. Currently the spell only thrusts the player in the direction they are facing, creating a valuable movement spell to help escape large groups of enemies.

Next Steps:

- Optimize *Water Wave*'s area of effect visuals to better communicate the range to the player and correct launch vectors.

- Continue refining the interaction between Water Dash and various map obstacles while creating an interactive way to direct the dash in other directions.

Overall, this week was a major step forward in polishing the player’s control over water-based spells, ensuring they’re not just fun to use but fit seamlessly into the gameplay experience.