Juiciness - Brawler
2025 - 3 days
The goal of this small project was to create a toy without any external asset, and to show that some juiciness features can tweak the game in a more efficient way than visual assets.
Design
For this first juiciness showcase, I decided to create a top-down brawler.
Here is a small 3Cs recap :
Character Actions :
- Move
- Light Attack
- Heavy Attack
Controls :
-WASD (Move)
-Left Click (Light Attack)
-Right Click (Right Attack)
Camera :
-Top view
-Orientation : ~57 degrees down
-Smooth horizontal damping (x/z only)
Here is the attack combo tree.
The intuitive way to use attacks is to use the same input multiples times a row. This gives access to new attacks; for example, using a light attack after 'Light Attack 1' will launch 'Light Attack 2'.
However, there are some bridges between light & heavy attacks, allowing the player to create various combos.
Attacking is cool, now we need enemies!
I created a simple enemy. Its only goal is to walk towards the player.
There are 2 variants of this enemy, which means we have 3 in total.
These 3 enemies have different sizes and health points. Each one is designed to die after one or a few hits.
The goal is to create weak enemies so the player feels powerful and can kill many of them, creating a juicy scene!
Result
I think it might be interesting to see the result first, then dive into the juiciness effects that I created to make this.
Here is a gameplay video.
Juiciness
I used several effects to create this fight experience.
Let's start with the player animations, which use many animation principles to create impactful attacks.
Before getting into it, I must add that I'm not an animator; however, I managed to create animations using the default animator window in Unity.
The player is made of cylinders and a capsule, and I made a pseudo-rig using parent game objects.
Another important detail is that all the following animations will be played 6 times slower than the originals, so that you can analyze each one in details.
Anticipation
The arm is going backwards first, meaning that the entity is preparing its attack.
Exageration
The entity jumps very high and stretch its arms in a very unrealistic way. However, since the animation is playing faster, this isn't disturbing and it even makes the movement smoother.
Squash and stretch
The hands of the entity meet and generate a powerful strike. They are stretched out vertically to emphasize the momentum.
Slow in - Slow out
The rotation of the entity is following a smooth curve so that the movement doesn't feel too 'mecanic'. The rotation is also slowed at the top of the movement to highlight the attack impact.
Other effects
This game couldn't exist without a screen shake. This effect is highly used in games.
It is made by shaking the camera horizontally and vertically, sometimes even by rotating it.
Here, I used it to highlight heavy attacks.
I also implemented a hit-stop. This effect slows or stops time for a moment to emphasize an impact or an action. In our case, I use it whenever the player kills an enemy.
I also made it degressive so that the times never really stops, and come back smoothly to a normal pace.
Visual Effects
Next, we will see some visual effects I've made for the game. Since they are not considered as juiciness features, I do not include them in the other effects. However, these are only basics visual effects and contribute to the juiciness in a more efficient way than detailed VFXs/Meshes/Textures.
Hit Tween :
The enemies are colored in white for a moment when getting hit. This is a feedback for the player meaning that the enemy has been hit, and this also highlights the span of the attack.
Dissolve shader :
The enemies are colored in white for a moment when getting hit. This is a feedback for the player meaning that the enemy has been hit, and this also highlights the span of the attack.
Arm trails :
The player has trails attached to its arms. The trails are emitting whenever the player attacks, so it follows the arm movements, which is the main movement in every attacks. This will strenghten the attack movement.
Attack VFXs :
Conclusion
I'm very satisfied with the visual aspect of the game. It shows how strong the juiciness effects are, especially in a stylized game.
I challenged myself on this project, only thinking about screen shakes, hitstops, and some animation principles; however, I never thought I could make it look so well without any animation/VFX skills.
The fact that I've managed to code it in two days, and polish VFXs and animations in the last day is even more satisfying!
Who said that a prototype shouldn't contain juice?!
Thank you for reading this article. Do not hesitate to check out other projects!
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