Hells Frozen Over

Distortion Digital (2023-Present)

Hells Frozen Over is my currently ongoing personal project, taking the core wave-based arcade survival gameplay seen in titles such as Killing Floor and Call of Duty’s Zombies mode, and expanding the format to fit a more narratively direct format and explore ways in which the core gameplay elements can be evolved for a unique experience.

Tech I Used

Unity Engine
- New Input Engine
- AI Navigation
- ProBuilder
- UGUI
- Custom Inspector Windows
JetBrains Rider
Blender
Git

Gameplay Systems

Enemy System

The enemies in the game are built upon a generic state machine which is then used as the foundation for programming enemy states and behaviours. The base state machine handles the implementation for state management, whereas the child classes can then define the available states and bind scripts to each.

State Machines Gallery

Weapons System

The weapons system is built as an abstract factory, allowing me to instantiate weapons at runtime without needing more than what the player has equipped loaded at once.

The base abstract class defines guaranteed behaviour for the weapon handler class to call upon, alongside allowing for weapons to bind any other event calls to the Fire and Alt. Fire inputs (such as animations, sound and FX) without directly binding them through code.

The weapon challenges shown in the abstract class ties directly into the weapon evolution system, which is talked about in depth further on.

The handler class is primarily used to handle inputs and higher level weapon functionality. All player inputs related to the weapons are passed through this script, which can then pass these calls through to the currently equipped weapon.Alongside this, it functions as the factory for the weapons, handling the spawning, despawning and slot assignment for any weapons the player will acquire throughout gameplay, be it by a weapon pickup or through a weapon evolving.

Weapons System Gallery

Weapons Evolution System

This aspect of the Weapons System is very early in development and will be updated as the system is refined further. Some aspects of it are likely to changed or be removed entirely.

The Weapon Evolution system is a mechanic designed to encourage players to try out different playstyles, and allow for players to engage in combat in ways that feel natural to the weapon and be rewarded for it. A weapon will track the conditions in which a kill was secured and award progress toward the evolution if such conditions are met.

For instance, the first weapon planned for the game, the ‘Shard of Limbo’, will have a challenge rewarding players for both backpedalling kills, and kills while moving towards enemies. The upgraded variants rewarded for these challenge completions will play into the condition requirement, such as a throwing knife for the backpedalling and a battleaxe for the more ‘beserker’ sort of gameplay.

Please note that the upgrades mentioned are not implemented within the game as of yet, and will undergo further testing, iterating and brainstorming to ensure the most interesting and engaging play challenges are chosen for the Shard of Limbo, as with every other weapon that is planned for development.

Evolution System Gallery