Escape Academy

SIMONCURTIS
GAMEDESIGN | Systems Design

SIMONCURTIS
GAMEDESIGN | Systems

Escape Academy

Game Description

Solve puzzles, hack servers and meet the faculty. Escape Academy is a single player or a co-op escape room simulator where you must graduate and become the ultimate escape artist.

Role (Intern)

Gameplay Programming
Research

Company

Coin Crew

Team Size

Approximately 15

Contributions
Design & Programming

I defined five different types of aim assist to serve as reference and determine the kind of aim assist we'd want for the game.
I researched aim assists in other games and updated the company confluence with reference videos, brief summaries of each referenced video and the style of aim assist
Programmed the aim assist for the actual game.

Initial prototype only using friction

Final version working to quickly select UI elements

Contributions
Researching Aim Assists

Types of Aim Assist

Aim Assist Examples

Magnetism
- Bullets curve towards their target(s)(1)
Snapping
- ‘Reorients the player’s camera toward enemies whenever a player’s reticle are in proximity to their target.’(1)
Acceleration
- ‘Makes it so that when the player pegs their aiming stick in one direction, the player’s reticle will start moving slowly in that direction & pick up speed.’(1)

Friction
- ‘Slows the player’s turn rate as soon as the reticule passes over an enemy.’(1, 2)
- ‘What it does is that it slows the player's top speed, and then dramatically decrease the rate at which the crosshair will slow down when the player release the stick.’(1)
Stickiness
- Follows the target as they move over the reticle.

Friction, Magnetism, Stickiness

Friction, Stickiness, Snapping

Aim Assist Analysis

“For any intrusive program like the aim assist to work correctly, it first has to correctly predict when the guidance is needed. Otherwise it can jeopardize the whole game-play or lead to an overall frustrating experience. Think of it like this, what could be worse than the aim assist moving or “helping” your aim towards a target that just moved across your screen while you’re sniping and already have another target in your sights.
The aim assist achieves this predictive intelligence through a number of ways. Most commonly targets have zones around them and the aim assist makes a decision based on a number of factors like how close to the zone you are, how long have you been inside the zone and what speed is the target moving at.” (4)