Dual Shadows
Unreal Third-Person Action Game
Senior Capstone Project : Team 8
Date: 12/16/24 - 5/10/25
Role: Combat and Technical Designer
Intent
In Dual Shadows, the player takes control of a character named Linh and has to fight through the streets of Dragon’s Rain in order to defeat and capture the mythical beasts that broke out of containment. The setting and characters are inspired by Vietnamese mythology and the architecture of Ho Chi Minh City.
My Role
I joined the project halfway through its development so I was brought on to improve and add to an already existing system. I have mainly worked on player abilities and boss fight mechanics, as well as the VFX that goes with them.
Boss Mechanics
The thing I have been getting to work on the most is the mechanics and abilities of our boss fights. I was able to design the way the boss would function and have been working closely with our character animator and level designer to make sure everything is working cohesively.
My Process
I joined the Dual Shadows project halfway through its production and there was already a base system for combat with enemies and boss fight with two phases. I was brought onto the team to completely revamp the combat experience to make it feel more dynamic and engaging.
Before my involvement, the Phoenix boss only had a few attacks and invincibility events at certain health milestones. I wanted to completely reinvent the fight in order to upgrade the move-set and make the flow of combat feel less scripted. I also removed the invincibility events, because I believe they interrupted the concentration of the player and took too much of their attention off the boss.
I gave the Phoenix a larger pool of attacks to use and expanded them to be more interactive with each other, allowing some moves to create obstacles or empower an attack. The most important part of my design philosophy is the attention I place on player agency and making sure that the combat does not railroad the player into a certain play style.
