Things I've Worked on:

• Worked on design document with rest of the team, planned out features
• Planned out level designs in Unity using the Probuilder addon.
• Worked with the graphics team and placed out models and props in the level to connect level design and flavor.
• Balanced by the game by the strength of different attacks from the character and the enemies.
• Organizing playtests and adapting the game after feedback
• Designed and balanced the attacks of different enemies with help from the programmers and artists.
• Designed and balanced the rune system, power ups given per level completed.

Axe Throw

One of the challenges of To Hel and Back was making the game feel unique with the limited resources we had. One mechanic we used to solve this was the axe throw. Sif, the main character has two axes, a battle axe she uses in melee and a throwing axe.

The player can throw their axe, then by clicking again, teleport to where the axe landed. This can be used to reposition, get out of harms way, teleport to ranged enemies to attack them in melee and more.

The teleport is however is the players only movement tool, and needs to thrown before it can be used. We talked about having a dash mechanic, but choose not to, as only having the axe throw led to more tactical play and planning.

Aggresion

One problem we were trying to fix at end stage of development was the the fact that the optimal tactic was to engage as few enemies as possible at a time. While we wanted promote tactical play, pulling in one enemy at a time from aggro range is not engaging gameplay and doesn't fit the Viking theme of the game. We also wanted avoid mechanics required use of more buttons.

Some people on the team suggested some mechanic that penalized not fighting enemies when possible, like losing health when not in combat. However I would rather want a mechanic that rewarded you for being in battle, instead of penalizing you for being out of it. Mechanics that punish the player have to be clearly displayed and easy to understand otherwise they can feel annoying and unfair.

While we didn't have time to implement it, I designed a combo mechanic where you build a up a aggression meter by hitting enemies and then healed based on the size of your combo when you stopped. This would be a risk-reward mechanic as you would have to stop your combo to heal.

Another alternative would be that the player would enter a "viking fury" after hitting with x attacks in quick succession, where they would have a percentile life steal to restore health

Enemies

While To Hel and Back is finished and the team has split of to work on new projects, we still had lots of ideas that never got implemented. We were discussing bosses, new weapons, new levels and more things.

One of my favorite things design wise that I didn't design was how our enemies looked. Aside from having a cool model thanks to our graphics team they also came up with the idea of the animal heads. There is actually only one character model in the game, Sifs (the main characters) model. The enemies also use this model, but due to the animal masks they wear and some color magic you might not notice that at first.

This animal theme was also a really fun design prompt; designing enemies based on Scandinavian animals and the folklore around them. Implemented in the game we have the melee enemy with a wolf mask and the ranged enemies with a crow mask. I also have design notes and ideas for;

• Moose mask, a fast melee enemy with a charge attack
• Bear mask, a tough melee enemy with a grapple ability and a lot of health.
• Fox mask, a tricky enemy that can go invisible (or translucent) and backstab you.
• Bevear mask, a defensive focused enemy with a wooden shield.
• Snake mask, a tricky enemy that can posion you. It would need some form of counterplay though, since being poisoned can be really annoying in games
• Lynx mask, a supportive enemy with slowing frost attacks.