SuBow

What is SuBow?

SuBow is the result of a two week assignment at Futuregames.
The instructions were simple. Create a party game that draws inspiration from two different sports and combine them into an experience for 2-4 players.

SuBow is, as the name implies, a mixture of sumo and archery.
From archery we took bows, arrows and target boards, and from sumo we took the Asian theme and also the objective of pushing your opponent out of the dohyō (wrestling ring).

The goal of the game is to knock other players off of the arena and earn points by doing so.
Launching an opponent onto one of the spinning boards will grant extra points.
After a two minute battle, the victor will be the player with the most points!

What did I do?

For the SuBow project I was the primary scripter and built most of the core mechanics in the game. This includes movement, shooting, spawning, scoring, etc.

Character generation

For the characters I wanted to keep things as modular as possible so I made it so that all the characters in the game are the same character, just with different visuals.
When characters spawn they get their appearance generated based on which player is controlling them.
This system allows for easy implementation of character customization, although this feature got scrapped.

Scoring system

Players get score for being the last to hit an enemy that falls out of the arena.

Extra score is granted if an enemy lands on a target board. These platforms have different rings worth different amount of points.
Calculating score from hitting the spinning targets was made with simple vector math, measuring the distance from the impact point to the middle of the target, then fetching the right amount from a data table.

Reflecting arrows

When the core gameplay was done, I had some time to add extra features. One of these were the ability to reflect arrows back when getting shot. This added more depth to the game as well as a higher skill roof.