THUNDERDOME - Trent Davies

THUNDERDOME (Working Title)

Fight unknown terrors from the abyss that have made an unholy pact with hell in this ultraviolent, fast-paced FPS with fluid movement and a revenge-based health system. Escape the THUNDERDOME before the weight of the ocean above crushes it, but not before you mark the four jailers who put you there for death.

The videos above contain footage from early in development.

Project Details

Genre: FPS Roguelike
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Platform: PC
Early Devlog: https://agamedesignjournal.wordpress.com/2022/10/24/devlog-ue5-and-thunderdome/

What is THUNDERDOME?

THUNDERDOME is a project in early development that I've worked on and off in my spare time that I plan to release in 2025. It's a high-skill, highly replayable FPS roguelike, where you'll encounter waves of unique enemies and bosses inspired by the deep sea. Your goal is to escape the THUNDERDOME, an underwater arena, before it's crushed by the ocean above by eliminating the four jailers who imprisoned you there. Each run offers different powerups to utilize, pushing you to adapt your playstyle on the fly. A dynamic score system is used that rewards aggressive, stylish play, with a multiplier that increases based on how quickly and creatively enemies are killed.

Solo Development

I'm currently working on THUNDERDOME as a solo developer primarily using Blueprints, with all art and animations also done myself. I utilize class inheritance, interfaces, and behaviour trees for rapid development of AI and take a data-driven approach to player weapons as I take advantage of data assets. This in particular allows me to easily prototype new weapon ideas with little to no change required in the weapon blueprint.

This approach of creating easy-to-use scalable systems is propagated throughout every feature of the project, as this allows me to create and test ideas rapidly which is essential when working in a team of one.

The Death Marker

THUNDERDOME features a unique health system centred on revenge. When a player is damaged, a pentagram appears above the enemy that hit them, and the screen darkens with a vignette as they're marked for death. A second hit means game over unless the player quickly eliminates the marked enemy to remove the death marker. This mechanic pushes players to adopt a more aggressive, risk-taking playstyle. Facing stronger enemies with high health becomes even more dangerous, as they take longer to kill, making it harder to clear the death marker before being hit again.

Screenshots

Shotgun Data Asset Example

Data asset used by the weapon blueprint for a shotgun. These parameters can be tweaked to create various gun types without having to touch the blueprint.

Fire Weapon Event

Event for firing a weapon. This uses parameters set in the data asset.

Fire Projectile Functions

Weapons fire an invisible 'actual' projectile that handles collision and damage which moves forwards from the camera, right where the crosshair is. A visual projectile is also fired from the weapon itself, directed towards the hit location of a line trace from the camera. This is used to solve an issue of projectile based weapons where firing a projectile only from the weapon can cause it to hit cover, despite the player having placed their crosshair over an enemy.

Shotgun Data Asset Example

Data asset used by the weapon blueprint for a shotgun. These parameters can be tweaked to create various gun types without having to touch the blueprint.

1/3

Noun-Verb Chart

Early on in projects I like creating noun-verb charts to see what relationships exist between systems and features. This is one I created at the beginning of THUNDERDOME. These allow me to identify any shortfalls with my designs at a high level.

Squid Angel

First boss the player will encounter with several different attacks to learn and avoid. The Squid Angel is a giant squid that's been transformed into an angelic abomination and encased inside its own concrete tomb.

Crosshairs and Powerup Icons

When a powerup is chosen, the player's crosshair changes with it to make it easy to remember which powerup they're using. I experimented with wiggly UI by creating a Flipbook material for the powerup icons, these appear at the bottom left of the player's HUD.