Split Black started with a feeling rather than a mechanic: running through a city so fast the level can barely keep up, and never wanting to stop. The problem with that feeling is that fighting usually means stopping. Most action games plant your feet the moment you press attack. This post is about the first pass at not doing that.
Speed is a resource
The core is a momentum meter. It fills while you are moving at speed and drains the moment you slow down or stop. Attacks draw on it. That single rule changes how a room reads: the fastest route through it is also the most dangerous one for the things in your way, and a corner that forces you to brake is a real threat even if nothing is standing in it.
It is built in Blueprints as a small component on the character. The meter is just a float, but almost everything downstream looks at it: damage, reach, how long Focus lasts.
Three hits, no pause
The combo is three hits, and the constraint we set was that none of them can stop the legs. In Unreal that meant animation montages with a Layered Blend per Bone, so the sword swing plays on the upper body while the run cycle keeps driving the lower body. The first version looked like a person waving a sword on a treadmill. It took a few passes of adjusting the blend depth and the hit timing before it read as a strike delivered while running rather than instead of running.
Things that helped:
- Blending the swing in over a couple of frames rather than snapping to it.
- Letting the third hit shift the whole body slightly forward, so the combo pushes you through rather than holding you in place.
- A short slash trail in Niagara. It is decorative, but it sells the speed more than any animation change did.
Throw, then follow
The shuriken started as a plain ranged attack and became something else when we let you teleport to wherever it lands. It solves a problem the meter created: any gap or wall that forced a stop was a punishment. Now it is a decision. Throw, blink across, keep the meter alive.
It also turned out to be the most fun thing in the prototype, which is usually a sign to build more around it.
Focus
Focus slows time so you can line up a throw. We wanted it to feel like tunnel vision rather than a pause menu, so the screen desaturates and layered smoke closes in from the edges while it is active. It costs momentum, which keeps it from being free.
What is next
- Enemies that react to your speed instead of ignoring it.
- A version of the meter you can read without looking at the HUD.
- Deciding whether Focus should stop you fully or just slow you. Right now it does both depending on the day.
If any of this is interesting, the next post will be about the enemy AI, which is where most of the current problems live.