Combat Parkour
Early gameplay footage from my Combat Parkour project, showcasing the combat, movement, and gameplay systems I designed and implemented in Unreal Engine 5.
Role
Combat Designer
Game Designer
Level Designer
Systems Designer
Engine
Unreal Engine 5
Project Type
Personnal Project
Duration
September - Active developpement 2026
Project Overview
Combat Parkour is a personal game design project focused on creating a fast-paced action experience built around the combination of parkour movement and aggressive melee combat.
The game uses an arcade-style gameplay loop that rewards aggression, variety, and maintaining a continuous flow.
It is heavily designed around different attack and movement combinations, allowing players to chain actions together and create their own combat flow.
The project combines combat, movement, enemy AI, the Style system, and movement-combat interactions into a cohesive playable prototype.
Design Goal
1. Arcade-Style Combat Loop
Build a fast and rewarding gameplay loop that encourages players to stay aggressive, maintain their Style, and continuously engage with enemies.
2. Reward Variety and Combination
Design combat around combining different attacks and movement actions, allowing players to create varied chains rather than relying on a single optimal combo.
3. Connect Movement and Combat
Make parkour movement an active part of combat by allowing actions such as sprinting, sliding, jumping, and dodging to naturally transition into attacks.
4. Easy to Understand, Hard to Master
Keep the core mechanics accessible while creating depth through timing, positioning, movement, and the player's ability to combine actions effectively.
Inspirations & References
Mirror's Edge
Influenced the parkour movement and traversal, particularly the idea of maintaining flow while moving through the environment.
Classic DOOM
Influenced the arcade-style combat philosophy, where aggressive play, constant movement, and chaining actions together create a fast and rewarding gameplay loop.
Core Gameplay
Combat Parkour is built around a fast-paced arcade-style gameplay loop that combines movement, combat, and player expression.
Players are encouraged to continuously move through encounters, combine different attacks and movement actions, and maintain their Style to increase their combat effectiveness and score.
The goal is to create a gameplay experience where movement and combat naturally flow into one another, giving players multiple ways to approach encounters while rewarding aggressive and varied play.
Combat & Combo System
The combat system was designed to give players freedom to create different attack combinations rather than following a single predefined combo route.
The system uses a shared combo structure that allows attacks from different inputs to be chained together, creating multiple possible sequences during combat.
This approach gives players more control over how they build their combos while keeping the underlying controls simple.
Movement & Combat Integration
Movement is designed as an active part of combat rather than simply a way to navigate the environment. Parkour actions can be integrated directly into attacks, allowing players to use movement to reposition, engage enemies, and create new attack opportunities.
Actions such as sprinting, sliding, jumping, and falling can transition into attacks, creating different ways to approach an encounter and maintain combat flow.
The goal was to make movement and combat feel like one interconnected system, rather than two separate gameplay mechanics.
Movement & Combat Integration
The Style System was designed to reward players for maintaining an aggressive and varied combat flow. Successful attacks and different actions build Style, while repeating the same attack patterns provides diminishing returns.
Higher Style levels provide stronger combat bonuses and increase the player's score multiplier, creating a risk-and-reward loop where players are encouraged to keep their chain going while avoiding damage.
The system turns combat variety into a meaningful gameplay decision: players can play safely and repeat reliable attacks, or take greater risks to maintain Style and maximize their effectiveness and score.
Enemy Design & AI
Enemy design was built around creating different types of combat pressure.
Melee enemies focus on maintaining close-range pressure, while ranged enemies force the player to manage distance, positioning, and incoming projectiles.
The AI was designed to support the game's fast-paced combat flow while avoiding situations where enemies simply surround and overwhelm the player.
Melee enemies use group positioning and controlled attack opportunities to maintain pressure, while ranged enemies reposition to create additional threats from a distance.
The goal was to create encounters where players need to move, adapt their approach, and use the different combat and movement options available to them.