Kung Fu: Shadow Fist
I was contracted to create the tutorial and the first level featured in the project’s Vertical Slice. It was simply known as “The Subway Level”, and featured a variety of locations and events. The level starts in a back alley, transitions to the city streets, through a bar, into a subway station, and ends with a fast-paced finale on a subway train!
The core gameplay to Kung Fu: Shadow Fist is simple: Throw punches, dodge your enemies, and leverage your deadly Shadow Strike ability at every opportunity. The game was inspired by those old school, beat ‘em up arcade machines like Streets of Rage.
The Train Ride
Near the finale of the level, the player hops on a subway train and takes it across town. This video showcases an early iteration of the train ride. It’s all smoke and mirrors! The subway car itself remains static, while the level geometry moves around the car.
This results in a powerful, but performant illusion.
The Tutorial
Kung Fu: Shadow Fist was on the exhibition floor at PAX South 2018. If you’ve ever been to a show like PAX, then you know that the expo hall can be incredibly loud. This posed a unique challenge I had to consider all throughout the design and implementation of the game’s tutorial.
Instructions had to be clear, concise, and easily understood on the noisy show floor. I leveraged verbal commands, text commands, and made sure to make the player follow-through with various actions multiple times to ensure they knew how to play the game.
This was a huge win for the project. The tutorial was highly effective at training new players, and we saved our voice by not having to yell over the show floor noise. Win win!