Abyssal Surge is a fast-paced power fantasy shooter, inspired by Doom and Witchfire. Players combine gunplay and elemental magic to survive in a dark world. Made in Unreal Engine 5.
Made for a HvA school project.
If you want to check out this project, press here.
Abyssal Surge is an ever-evolving school project that passes from one development team to the next each semester within the Gameplay Engineering program at the HvA. The core objective is to create a fun and distinctive boomer-shooter that incorporates magical mechanics to elevate the combat experience. The real challenge, however, lies in the game engine: Unreal Engine 5. Although our projects are typically built in Unity, the client specifically requested Unreal for this assignment in order to leverage features like Lumen and Nanite.
The goal is to create a fun experience for players while also giving students the opportunity to explore new engines and expand their skills as game developers.
My work on the project focused primarily on improving several visual aspects of the game, including the title screen and the in-game player HUD. Earlier iterations were functional but lacked a cohesive theme and felt out of place. I took it upon myself to redesign these elements so they fit the game’s style and helped create a more immersive player experience.
In addition to the visual overhaul, I implemented a keybinding system that allows players to customize their controls, making the game more accessible for everyone.
Finally, the project was missing a clear reason for players to keep playing. A concrete goal to strive for. To address this, I added a scoring system that tracks enemy kills, as well as a speedrunning feature that records completion time. Combined with highscores and fastest-time tracking, these mechanics encourage players to improve their scores and times with each run.
