Take up the forbidden Shattering Sword to protect your village. Use gems to change the shape of your blade and adapt to your opponents.
Check out our Dev Blog!The Shattering Swords is a 3D third-person melee combat game. The player wields the Shattering Sword, a magical hilt with a gemstone blade. The player takes up the Sword to defend their village from hostile living constructs powered by gemstone cores. Obtaining these cores gives the player's sword new forms with unique abilities. These are:
Topaz Form - A balanced one-handed blade bestowed by the topaz that is sacred to the player's village. This weapon drains life from foes, which led to it's use becoming forbidden unless the village is in imminent danger.
Ruby Form - A massive two-handed greatsword that crushes foes with heavy slams. It's weight slows the player's movement, but they gain the ability to shrug off damage and power through enemy attacks.
Sapphire Form - A slender, short blade that attacks in a flurry of slashes. It grants the player faster movement to dart in and out of danger.
The player can switch their sword's form on the fly to adapt to any combat situation. Upon defeating the constructs that threaten their village, they face off against a final opponent: Another human, wielding their own Shattering Sword. They've come to take the Topaz's vampiric powers for themselves, using their Amethyst's ability to create the constructs you've been battling. This final battle sees the powers to give and take life clash, with the victor deciding the future of the village.
The Shattering Swords is my RIT Graduate Capstone project. In February 2021, four other students and myself formed the team of Bladesmiths to work on the project. After months of on-and-off brainstorming sessions, we solidified our concept and began development in August 2021 as part of our Capstone Design class. Development has continued throughout the following course, Capstone Development, which concludes in May 2022. Our team uses a Scrum-based process backed by a detailed taskboard, as well as a Confluence wiki to document information on the game and make our intentions clear to our external art team.
I've had significant input in creating the concept for The Shattering Swords, from gameplay design to aesthetic choices. I led meetings with our external art team multiple times per week during our design semester. I've written the vast majority of narrative for the game and delivered all of our pitches and presentations to students, faculty, and others. On the development side, my focus is combat feel and game balance. I've also designed and implemented the game's tutorial message system and shattering health bar.
