I Tried Making a Combat System Without Weapons... 

Hello! If you have any suggestions on how to improve this idea, or if you have any grand combat system ideas of your own be sure to reply to this comment so I don't miss them! I'll do my best to realize some of these ideas in another video. :)

Have a material system. Objects from wood only last a few throws, objects of stone or iron last longer. Also give objects an interaction range. So if something is floating and waiting to be used, if you move too far, you loose 'control' over the item. Maybe if you use an item and throw it towards a pillar or wall, it will crumble enough to also use the wall/pillar pieces as a projectile. And maybe also allow you to use yourself as a projectile, as a way of traversing longer distances in a shorter time, to get out of a dodgy situation. If you do some world building, this could actually become quite fun, even if it's a short but strong linear game.

Can't say I fault you for remaking Control's telekinesis, it's one of the best parts

Kinda gives avatar the last airbender vibes, you basically implemented an earthbender

Can you have the ability to clump up the items into a bigger projectile? And or could you add different densities to the items so that they potentially move at different speeds? Maybe enemies could have different Hp bars that affect the size of the enemies making higher HP easier to hit and they visually change colour and change in size as they lose health?

This is extremely cool! I especially like the easy pick-up ability, as well as the barrage with random targets. Some suggestions for mechanics off the top of my head: -Maybe add weapons that can't be wielded by the player, but you can fling them around telepathically. -It would also be interesting if you had two different types of damage, "Blunt Trauma" and "Applied Force". Throwing a barrel at someone would obviously cause blunt trauma damage, but doing the same with a sword would deal applied force damage. This could further be differentiated by the size-to-mass ratio of the objects. e.g. a cardboard box is big, but deal little blunt trauma damage due to its low weight, whereas a metal marble is small, but way heavier, dealing applied force damage like a gun bullet. -Perhaps make it so that, the smaller the object, the faster you can move it around, and the faster it'll be when thrown. -Not a fan of the typical magic in video games trope of limiting magical abilities via "Energy" points, so what about limiting it via the specific objects' weight instead? Your character would have a typical "Stamina" meter for dashing, jumping, dodging etc., which recovers as long as you're not doing any of these actions, but it would also deplete when using telekinesis, with heavier objects being more draining. -You could also perhaps display some sort of color-coded glowing "Rune" to immediately communicate the object's weight class. -Enemies could have two different sets of hit points, to go with the two types of damage. "Armor" Points would be drained more efficiently with blunt trauma, whereas "Body" points would be more susceptible to applied force. There could be enemies that have a mixture of both, and some that have just one. -Enemies could have specific attacks that would require unique strategies. Perhaps one type can catch and reflect anything you throw at them with their own telekinesis, but only as long as the things you throw at them are in their direct line of sight. Another could alternate between being susceptible to blunt trauma and applied force, And yet another could slowly absorb nearby objects off the ground to increase their own physical strength or speed. -If you get to designing environments, you could have specific, immovable props that activate certain effects if specific objects are near them, removed from their vicinity, or thrown at them. Obviously, the obligatory red barrel would explode if you throw a torch at it. Or maybe a Tesla coil that shocks and stuns nearby people (including the player) with arcs of electricity, but is only activated if there's a comically large battery nearby. Hope you find some of these inspiring.

Loving the telekinesis idea! looks great! loved Control and so cant wait to see how this turns out!

I love this! Telekinetic traversal mechanics could be fun too; objects with wheels that you can cling onto after pushing them. Rugs that you stand on can be slid across the floor. Maybe the only rule is, you can't use your power on yourself. So no flying around

Really cool! I loved Control so much. I also made a 2D game with this system and it was really fun.

I know multiplayer games can be an absolute chore to make, but imagine how much fun telekinetic duels could be! I'm imagining all the different techniques you could use like throwing curve-balls so the opponent can't catch your projectile out of the air, or making a ring of swords orbit you and running at the enemy like a human buzz-saw. Or even having a mid air sword fight where you and the opponent are trying to knock giant tree trunks out of each other's telekinetic grasp! Sounds like a lot of fun, but it's probably would hard to make and balance though.

Fixing the block to not kill the enemy on touch should be pretty easy. Maybe add a modifier that causes them to only do damage when they're an active projectile or traveling over x speed. Maybe have different damages based on the speed and more modifiers after they bounce. Maybe be able to pull pieces through environmental effects to set the on fire and whatnot. But awesome looking prototype. The idea really grabs at the imagination. Oh. Look up "yutapon cubes." You could have a lot of fun with that. Hopefully I'll be able to beat this depression pretty soon and actually feel like getting back to my would be projects.

3:59 "it's probably about as fun as punching a child, you feel cool and powerful at first but you get bored after a while because there is no challenge " Quote of the day for sure!

Great idea!!l allow me to share a bit of the technical dark side : The collision system definitely will help out with the damage . (On overlap event gets triggered whenever the box hits the enemy’s trigger volume, you can detect if the tag is a telekinetic weapon. That way you avoid other objects making damage) Now, on to the throwable weapons: again a huge trigger volume for the blueprint of the boxes can do the job, an overlap combined with a button/key press sounds about right (think picking objects from the ground for example, same functionality different animation!!) That would make it so you can only pickup boxes whenever you are close to them. Now, you can also do this in blueprints, you’ll have to ray cast an area though and get those objects and “arm” them. These are just a bunch of possible solutions, but you get the idea!! Cheers

WOWOWOWOW very cool. The character looks like they're doing the sprinkler 😂

A rope/whip that has movement that can be controlled by mouse movements but has physics. Flick your mouse to throw it and do a loop with your mouse to wrap it around the target then click to constraint the target. From there you can move/bash the target around. Idk.

a cool concept would be where objects have durability and the most significant portion of damage comes from objects aswell as the durability of said objects which there are a limited number of meaning one has to be both resourceful or figure out creative ways to get more materials to work with. Without any materials there would be a basic telekinetic attacks that aren’t very potent and requires accuracy but can disable enemies when hitting them at their limbs or kill them when hit at the neck. Like a basic telekinetic cut/punch focusing on disabling and killing and very potent for unarmored targets but doesn’t disable them long term and is ineffective against armoured bodyparts which require materials. A shield against guns and other telekinetics but it leaves the user unable to attack while it’s active. A leap and dash ability for platforming, dodging and movement in high speed segments. an awakening of some kind which is done by gaining meter formed by dealing damage or successfully dodging/parrying and allows for powerful combat without requiring materials such as telekinetically slamming ur enemies into walls directly and destroying the enviroment with ease, flight and a limited autoblock ability allowing them to take a limited number of shots without taking damage. Which forces the player to quickly deal with enemies in this powerful state or alternatively escape from that environment while progressing in the level. And a psychic stamina meter for using telekinetics which recharges over time meaning sometimes unarmed combat or gunplay is incentivised or alternatively , hiding behind cover and analysing ur environment. And the player must not be a damage sponge so it punishes players for: - just running in guns blazing - not dodging, or blocking - overusing/spamming their powers While rewarding - resource management of their psychic energy reserves - resource management of nearby materials - creating tactics fitting with their limited resources - good reaction time - accuracy

I never liked the systems where you pick something up, it flies to you and then you launch it at the enemy. They feel like so many potential interactions were removed from telekinesis. For example killing the enemy by interacting with object behind him, launching objects upwards/downwards. But the alternatives are always clunky, like there are no effective control schemes that can handle this mechanic. Thats why I liked the auto pick up and flying objects firing themselves into enemies ideas of yours. Maybe you can just mark the objects and the targets for them to fire into, but it may remove too much of player control to be fun. Also an idea of moving yourself with telekinesis only can be fun

My favorite way to beat people up with telekinesis was always the good old fashioned telekinetic energy BLAST!!!!!! As seen in both Mass Effect and the Star Wars the Force Unleashed. Commonly just called push.

I believe this idea has a lot of potential. Play Control if you can and havent played it, the combat system reminds me of this. Well done!

Love it! Could you put in the ability to lift and move enemies? Or what about pulling an object towards you and hitting an enemy from behind on the way?

Honestly, this IS how the best games are made! You make a single mechanic, then evolve the game around that mechanic, adding more mechanics that enhance the core mechanic. Its how all Nintendo games are designed, so honestly id say keep at it! Check out the video of "Nintendo - Putting Play First" by GMTK! So you have an issue, the mechanic gets repetitive and theres no challenge. 90% of the game should just be different sections of the game that explore that question in different ways. Exploring ways to use your core mechanic. A way to reduce the feeling of repetitiveness is by adding depth. When God of War throws his axe at the enemy, the axe bounces up, if you retrieve it with perfect timing, it comes back, making your next launch do more damage! Programming wise this would just have a 0.5 seconds delay after bounces off, display a spark particle, then have a 0.1 second window to retrieve. If you miss the window, it just retrieves it normally. Another example of good timing would be rhythm games and the reloading in Gears of War. A good watch is "Depth, Mastery, Vanquish" by GMTK again. Also the random target def reduces the thought process of attack, making the game basically play itself, which heavily reduces depth. Could have a slow motion and a lock on system while aiming, a lot like Kingdom Hearts' Shotlock. Check the video by Mix and Jam for pseudo-code of how to create it (he did it in Unity, but it works similar in Unreal). Also slow motion is easy to set up, its 1 node called time dilation. Or instead of time stuff, could have a charge period creating a risk vs reward while you aim, walk slowly being vulnerable while you charge for stronger launching and launching more of your objects, rather than shoot all without charge. Could have enemies shoot missiles at you, and you spin them around you and then shoot them at tough rock enemies who can only be destroyed by explosives? Some kind of elementals might work, fire guy who shoots fireballs you launch at plant guy. Water guy that shoot water balls you launch at the fire guy. Also a basketball minigame is a must! A designer's job is less about coming up with ideas, and more figuring solutions to problems. Hope this helps! I look forward to seeing more videos in you designer journey!

It would be cool if the game had a) the ability to grab enemies as projectiles and b) player abilities for enemies, maybe even the ability to steal objects from each other, have the enemy hold the player and vice versa at the same time, causing them to orbit each other, as well as the ability for enemies (and players) to conjure a swarm of magic missiles while not holding anything

This is how RU-vid should be. Simple idea. Overlook of the process. Finalized project. And natural editing and execution on delivery. (Plus it’s not long trying to get ads)

This looks nice. Some graphical assets, a storyline, a more robust movement system to get around more complex levels, more complex levels, and enemies that pose a threat and you'd have a really good game.

Control did this very well in my opinion. the basic attack of not needing to grab an object is just holding and releasing instantly, firing the object from its original position so you can either fire it instantly, or pull it towards yourself first. and you dont need to aim at objects because if you dont select one it just pulls the nearest one to you or to your reticle (or rips a chunk out of the nearest wall)

I got one concept regarding telekinesis from a dream a while back, where this character would pull metal from the dust in a Colosseum-like arena and compress it into a projectile to launch at enemies. I also agree with the concept a lot of people are saying that of giving each thing durability, as this will make the player have to adapt to what's available. You could also balance by giving limitations to the ability, either weight, volume, count of objects, range of effect, or even have the player become weaker the more they manage.

Some ideas! - Offer objects that deal debuffs / more damage BUT place them at hard to reach places. Then you can explore platforming/traversal mechanics and the player has to juggle between that and using other attacks - Add objects that cause problems to the player if picked up, like bombs that need to be thrown quickly, or objects that damage you over time - Have a move that blocks enemy attacks by moving objects in front of the player - Catch enemy projectiles with a "parry", where if you time it right the object is thrown back with more power - Lift and throw enemies after they've been weakened - Hover the objects in different defensive formations that the player can switch between for different scenarios (like above for attacks coming from above, or in pillars that block different directions for crowd control) - Limit hovering based on an energy system, where energy has to be picked up from enemies, consumables, or items in the world

I'd like to see this combined with a decently complex movement system. The idea of flying through the air, picking up random items and throwing them at whatever's in your way is incredibly cool.

Looks very fun. I imagine this would be very cool in VR

The idea is very good. I can see some rooms with just tons of enemies and objects floating around. One of the few games that I watch devlogs that I can actually see myself playing.

This is a really unique system and I love the idea of being able to use the things around you as weapons. Keep up the good work.

Different objects with different damage and interaction depending which object is thrown, like a sword would stuck to an ennemy and hinder its movement or pin it against a wall , a big box or rock would crush the ennemy for a massive amount of damages, smalls balls would barely do damage and very little knockback if at all depending on the size of the ennemy etc etc ... As well as a psychokinesis gauge that refills itself after a while so there can be some balance like between , between a small , special object (like a sword or such) and a boulder the amount of the gauge used would be the same to balance this system and make the use of one item over the other be depending on the situation and personal playstyle to avoid the "I'm just gonna go boulder everytime" As well as adding a beginning of difficulty by giving the ennemy a fighting chance.

make a location with dangerous pits and walls so that you can’t hit some enemies directly. enemies of different sizes. A large enemy is only affected by a large weight, so it can be used to move small weights to a point above it, which opens up the view of small enemies (that are behind walls) that can be thrown into a pit.

I think the game Control had a good handle of it and had fun movement a strong feel to the kinesis. If it was multiplayer it would be awesome especially since its fills an area with all kinds of combat even without the enemies when the player has all abilities it makes great opportunities for counter attacks and the “energy” system is pretty ballanced

Suggeations... 1. Different sized objects deal different amounts of damage. Smaller = less damage. 1.5. A combo system, so even the small objects have merit. (Condition could be: less than a second between each hit, making each object deal 1.25x or something damage instead of normal.) 2. A sort of "energy" bar that is constantly refilling, but is used when picking up and/or throwing items. Bigger items use more energy to pick up. 2.5. Depending on how fast the energy fills, maybe there could be a way to regain chunks of energy. Either as rewards for performing certain actions or as consumables, either on the ground or dropped from enemies. 3. Environmental stuff, I.E, throwing something associated with water at something ellectric will cause nearby enemies to get shocked and stunned. Throwing something metal at something electric or hot will conduct. Throwing something at a bag of flower will blind enemies. Throwing sharp or heavy objects at explosives will make them explode. 3.5 Weather. Thunderstorms will hit metal objects. Cold weather will freeze water. Heavy rain will make it hard to either see or move. Strong wind will move objects, maybe even thrown ones if they're able to.

I think the moves are fine. One big advantage of that system is the variety of weapons usables at once. You could have slow objects, fast objects, objects that transform after hitting the ground or enemies, objects that set things on fire, can be set on fire, break in smaller objects, are attached to the ground and can't move too far, are attached to the enemies or even the player to move around. You could set up combos by hitting enemies in a particular order, which mean either spending some time hitting with ojects one after the other or placing them farther from the enemy then sending them all at once.

Some thoughts: Allow for the player to increase the orbit speed of held objects. Makes it a defensive option that pushes things away that get too close Let players manually aim to try for headshots for additional damage Let the player condense all nearby objects together to make a front facing wall to act as a shield, could also then perform an attack that shotguns the objects outward Limited flight using a single flat object to carry yourself around would be interesting Charge attacks could be fun too, drop all other floating or held objects to charge a single powerful throw that keeps travelling until it hits the ground or a wall Enemies that can catch your projectiles with their own telekinesis, so you have to overwhelm them with your own attacks or time your attack to land right after they throw

An idea that could help is to make it look like a conductor when firing objects consecutively, that way it doesnt look like the animation is reseting everytime its fired.

Great implementation. A couple of thoughts: 1) Researching the laws of physics may help create some ideas for balancing. Eg. Every force has an equal and opposite reaction. 2) A defensive solution could be to have the objects spin super fast around you, blocking any incoming projectiles. 3) Each projectile picked up needs to have a health system, so a) the object cant be used over multiple attacks as it slowly deteriorates and b) you could code ai to target the items floating around you before targeting you, to try and break them before they are launched at them or to atleast damage their effectiveness. Hope you can work on this a bit more and turn it into a fully fledged game, also consider the idea multiplayer. Could be LOTS of fun to duel other players and strategising larger more damaging objects vs faster less damaging objects!

this is so cooool!! I would HIGHLY recommend looking at the game Control for how to stylize the look of this since that game has a lot of telekenetic typa combat

Absolutely loves games like this, especially as a coop. Games like Immortals of Aveum are so much fun, but would be 10x better with a friend/friends.

I love Telekinesis so much. I wish more games used it and more media appreciated it. So I love that you’re doing a creative project around the power set. I’m curious, is your telekinesis more magic based or scientific meta mutant superpower based. I think determining that could give you some ideas around how the telekinesis should function, and the type of combat you want to see. Ideas: think using Telekinesis like different object could help as variety to the player’s combat: Picking up the shards of broken objects and releasing them to shoot shotgun. Or shoot a tornado of energy to collect small object that hit enemies along a path. And the size of the object could determine how much of the players power meter depletes: So, a huge bolder cost more “mana” than a small crate or a hand held object.

Combining items to form larger structures would be cool. You get a bunch of boxes and pull them together and make a giant ball you can hurl at stuff, or you make them into a long stick you can bash stuff with or you turn them into a wall to block attacks. Being able to step onto the stuff that's frozen in the air temporarily would also be interesting. Being able to spin the items you're controlling could be interesting. You cld make a beam structure by combining stuff and rotate it to face the enemies and spin it to make a fan or smth. I think just more ways to manipulate the stuff you're controlling would be quite interesting

Here's an idea! I would love an in depth tutorial for these mechanics. It's so well done!!! You might consider the ability to grab stunned enemies and toss them around too, perhaps at other enemies in the group. It would be interesting to see a swirl of minor enemies being tossed at a boss enemy.

Splitting up abilities into damage/defense/utility might add more depth to the combat choices. Utility could be buffs to the character or debuffs to the enemy for things like movement, ability to attack, strength of defense etc. Would recommend tactical things like temporary levitation for more interesting vertical play options, charged aoe “psywave” for group stuns or enemy displacement and some kind of “read thoughts” utility that would give strong indicators when and enemy attack was coming/some kind of time based advantage to the player.

Idea is pretty interesting. Try removing unfun part and enhancing fun part: 1. Different abilities with different effects. Throw all objects at once in all enemies (e.g. in cone in front of you). Throw all objects at 1 enemy, objects are thrown in a row. On later stages you can infuse objects with effects: slow zone, burn, etc. Or. There can be interaction based on object type. If it's wood it will burn. If it's stone it will knockback the enemy. Something like this. 2. Add physics to game mechanics. Damage scales with impact force. Force diminishes with distance (e.g. gravitation starts working at some distance). 3. Great idea with enemy projectiles. It can be bombs or energy balls - things that fly slower. You can catch them and throw back. Damage is higher and AoE. 4. Feels like enemy hard lock can be removed. Make it automatically (crosshair may be needed still). If you throw an object somewhere near the enemy - autolock will throw it at the enemy. If too far - it will miss. Similar to what you did with determining closest enemy to lock to. 5. You can add power progression. Pickup radius, projectile speed, etc. 6. Not sure if will be interesting. Object mass is considered. At first you can pick up only light objects. Later - heavier objects and small enemies.

-Add a sort of stun, like if you decided to do multiplayer, so the player would stun the enemy if their telekinesis hit. To avoid the telekinesis, add dashing. Each time they dash the lock-on disappears until the Enemy stopped dashing, during this dash, the character will be put into manual toss mode. -Add front and side dashes, front dashes if into an enemy shoves them back and does a bit of damage. -Add custom themes around the things you grab, (sorta like mob in mob psycho 100) and add multiple themes to choose from as the game progresses. -Assign custom moves as the player would level up. Sorta like the key " 1 " Would pick up debris off the ground and smash the opponent into the ground, allowing the player to front dash and knock them back, into an automatic telekinesis toss. (effectively creating a combo.) -Add special enemy's that redirect your telekinesis attacks, but instead of them hitting you, it would deflect into the environment, create a minefield. hope you enjoyed my suggestions

One thing I have seen in stories with telekinesis or equivalent, is the abiilty to execute complicated movements, like curving paths and so on, or dodging blocking moves. Would not exactly be easy in this form, but is a thing to consider.

the ability to ride on an object using telekinesis, or even creating the ability to reconstruct objects into different forms, like a giant fist, or meteor type attack, also having a cool down effect so that the play can't infinitely spam all the attacks as often as they'd like, making it into a skill tree type system to boost effectiveness and attack and defensive ability too

It depends on the theme you want to go for. You might be able to work in some elemental weaknesses if it's fantasy or sci-fi, or perhaps debris that has special effects (think red barrels). Maybe bosses with similar powers. You could make a precision mode to aim at a specific location for puzzles and weak points. Perhaps a quick scroll feature for when you want to throw a specific item and you already have several. Another thought, if you use a telekinetic push on a fixed object, make it push yourself. Might make for some fun mobility for combat or at the very least for exploration. Also, you could incorporate the first way of doing it as an unlock later in the game, but at greater range, allowing you to pick up objects that you normally couldn't reach and manipulating it with a greater degree of control.

There is a VR game called Rumble which is basically Earth Bending from Avatar with PVP. It does telekinesis combat in a really interesting way that also includes the ability to summon new objects of different shapes - which makes sense as it is themed around earth bending.

One mechanic you could implement would be something like an ultimate/high-risk ability where all objects hovering around you are slowly merged together above your head into a meteor-like object that can target a single enemy. Being attacked would stop the concentration on the meteor and cause it and all the objects used to create it to be destroyed.

This was a great watch, and it really gave me some insight into how games are made. Obvious additions for your next try would be telekinetically attacking the enemies directly like using the GRP in Callisto Protocol.

Wow underrated video quality and effort! Deserves more subs

I don't know if pre-existing ideas are aloud but I love how Psychonauts approaches telekinesis. Maybe you could implement a basic 3 hit combo of some kind that gets stronger with more objects in limbo? Perhaps a way to interact with the objects outside of just moving them, like heat, cold, density, size, etc? Perhaps a parry system using the pre-existing catch manuever you had to give bonus damage to projectiles.

This would be a very interesting combat system to go up against guns and other raycast-based opponents, since they are very asymmetrical powers. The player would have the challenge of dealing with enemies whose attacks go too fast to be caught telekinetically. In general I like the idea of telekinetic characters going up against obstacles that can breach/avoid/ignore telekinesis, because it adds a need for the player to think through ways to use the telekinesis as a tool rather than just an attack to time.

a good inspiration is CONTRAL. amazing game to built upon its enjoyable combat without the gun. my suggestion would be to add enemies that throw back/use your own projectiles against you. Ultrakill did it well with V2 shooting the coins thrown by the player. suggestion 2, maybe add a mechanic of breaking the projectiles so they inflict a status affect on hit. like bleading from wood, poison from rusted metal ... etc adding diffrent types of projectiles which opens up a whole new level of interactions (liquid projectiles would be interesting, for example : throwing a ball of oil followed by burning wood...) lots of funny ideas. thank you for reading

i think itd be neat if damage was based off of momentum, and juggling items in the air would build up momentum (sort of like dangling a mob in the air with a lasso in minecraft). it could also add some rythm game type mechanics trying to keep all your blocks afloat. to keep yourself from juggling too much and not attacking, after building up enough momentum you could levitate the items like normal, preserving momentum in the object to do damage. i think it could add different play styles, like fast firing low momentum shots (kinda like an smg) or building momentum over a while to do a lot of damage in one shot (like a sniper)

I love this concept! Definitely could harbor a lot of emergent gameplay

I'm Lemon Doto, and This Is My Favorite Video on the RU-vid

Always figured someone would try this route, telekinesis is such an impressive and underutilized power in gaming I think

Maybe instead of a large arm motion to throw, you can use a small low-key motion to activate the throw. (Like a finger snap. Or maybe having a kinetic stance makes it easier to simply point at an enemy, etc). The rapid flicking of the character's arm makes it hard to feel like the movements are realistic.I like how the motion of the objects seems sort of tethered. That looks friggin cool and satisfying. Playing off of that could make the motions seem more organic.

Very satisfying to watch! Loved this video :)

I kinda love it. Hopefully someone reaches out to you to turn this into a real game with challenging enemies and creative play areas. As far as ideas go, how about using your telekinesis on yourself to jump great distances? How about destructable terrain items, or ye olde explosive barrel? Fun stuff. Kudos.

This is so epic. It would be cool if you could hover objects over enemies and then drop or throw them straight down onto their heads. Might be cool to have objects with unique abilities based in their shape and size.

I want telekentic surfing/skating in this if you have a large enough item to be on. Could have items you can lift have a "isWeapon" bool that toggles to true when lifted and thrown with a timer to reset after landing for fixing death from walking into liftable objects. Also you could maybe re-implement the ranged enemies by just having them be enemy telekenetics. The dead should be able to be used as weapons. Might make a difference between sharp and blunt objects, and have three enemy armor types, basically noArmor, chainMail, plateArmor that have differing resistances to the types of objects. Saw someone else mention item durability based on the material it is made out of. Ways to effect the shape of the level would be nice too.

On the one hand, there are interesting possibilities that would come from limits on the durability of objects, or limits on your reserves of psychic power. On the other hand, I'd almost caution you not to mess with that too much until you make the enemies a challenge. I'm thinking you're gonna need a massive amount of enemies (2-3x what you used in this demo), and they'll have to have several variants to work around. On top of the standard grunts, you could have archers who post up on balconies along the back walls and can shoot you with arrows. You could also have big men with armor that could take a few hits before keeling over. It might be fun to have certain enemy types that resist certain attacks, too. (e.g., maybe a shieldbearer turns out to be immune to direct frontal attacks, but remains vulnerable to the rebound attacks where you pull previously launched projectiles back in for another hit.) It might be nice to have a slowly recharging mana bar, too - so you can't constantly spam your most powerful move for free. Your basic attacks would drain little or none of the mana, but the special ones would drain a decent bit, which would lead to more interesting decision-making. That, plus enemy variety, plus a real sense of danger could equal a hell of a game. 🙂

Before suggesting any idea I need to ask: did you play the Control?

Heres some ideas: From the thumbnail I thought that youd use different objects that each one has a unique way to attack enemies instead of brainlessly throw it, like using a sphere objects being bouncy, flat objects to function as a shield to block attacks with, pointy long spear shaped objects for long ranges, and some other objects to build structure to hide behind, or use them to crush your enemy while holding it, breakable objects that shatter to make AOE damage to use against swarms of enemies, use objects to get on top of them to get to places that gives you advantage

Honestly, In the current implementation, this combat system doesn't feel as unique and immersive as telekinetic combat could theoreticly be. It's basicly just shooting projectiles with a few tweaks. It can be fun if done correctly (take a look at control for example). And it did started to evolve into something more unique once you started to play around with idea of building up a floating objects around enemies. Strategecly position objects around enemies could be fun! One of the best telekinetic combat system i've seen was in the game 'psi-ops: the mindgate conspiracy'. You don't just pick an object and throw it - you actually controll the object. You move your mouse to move the object in horizontal plane an use the scroll wheel to move it in up-down. So it's up to you what you want to do with an object you picked. You can pick a box, move it to you and use it as a cover, and when you move you have to move you mouse so object move with you. You can pick up an enemy and repeatetly smash them against two opposite walls of the corridor and only then throw them away. While looking from high up, you could pick up the explosive barrel on the ground, stealthly move it to the area with enemies and throw it. You can even pick an object, move it to you, climb on top of it and use it to fly around! I'm just imagining what could be done if someome were to develop this idea further. For example: * Instead of (or maybe in addition to) scrollwheel for vertical movement, allow using some modifier keys to switch mouse up-down to move object up-down, insteaf of forward and backwards. And some keys to just move object without mouse. Basicly - more controlls for skilled players. * Allow to "freeze" an objects in place, so you could manipulate another object in meantime. Build your own floating platforms! And add a modifier key to manipulate all frozen objects at the same time. Pick some boxes and accelerate them all towards enemies at the same time! * Maybe lower the amount of throw aim-assist. P.S Sorry for suggesting completly different idea instead of a ways to improve yours. Honestly, I just wanted an excuse to mention psi-ops...

I'd say you should add in a way to use telekinesis directly against enemies, for example pushing enemies into each other or pulling enemies to you to use as a human shield. Another idea that could be fun is being able to use objects as a secondary focal point, for example, instead of pulling nearby objects to you, you pull them towards an object or enemy you've selected that's further away from you.

This mechanic could be really fun in combination with a setting like trying to destroy as much stuff as possible in a precious dishware shop or grocery store, or you could make the character giant and make it build landscapes by tossing around clumps of dirt and stone, or some kind of psychic monster hurling objects around to destroy a city and fend off fighter jets and helicopters....

A telekinetic combat system isn't a combat system without weapons. It's just a combat system with an invisible, shapeshifting weapon.

This reminds me of Silver's gameplay from Sonic 06, i love it! :)

Looks nice and smooth! Perhaps consider a telekinetically wielded weapon, like a distant slash with a sword or like Yondu's whistle dart thing from Marvel.

Maybe it'd be cool to have a double jump+float combo by telekinetically levitating yourself, and a feature that if you launch an object while airborne it pushes you back a bit, as well as hazards in the air or high on walls to make you think about the way you're facing when you fire your shots

In the game “Control” the powers are backed by a skill tree however final attributes are pretty balanced with the “energy” mechanic and how maybe it doesn’t recover over time but maybe it could be charged like in dead space or Callisto protocol or whichever it was

The appeal of Telekinesis is how you can make ANY object into a weapon. Currently the player has only one weapon, a projectile they can launch at an enemy, which is basically just a gun with extra steps. Consider implementing additional telekinetic attacks where the objects take different shapes and/or move in specific patterns e.g. a spinning saw blade like disc, a big wreaking ball that squashes and rolls up stuff like a katamari, or a telekinetic tornado. Also, while it does make sense for a Telekinetic to be able to fly i.e. surely they can grab themselves and go - this also means that they should surely also be able to just force choke all their foes. However, you probably don't wanna let the player kill their enemies so easily so instead, you could make a rule that says that Telekinesis doesn't work on living things. The player's weakness is life itself, which is fitting for a power that excels at causing death and destruction. Anyways, another way a Telekinetic could still achieve flight is for them to continuously build a floating path of projectiles.

This would be so fun if used nicely in a game! Really cool idea!

id love to see this game completed, also i think it would be good to make it in a more cartoon style, not so real, not only for fps, but i generally think it would be better

I’m also working on making the fun part of a game, specifically replicating RuneScape 3’s combat system with GAS. Haven’t gotten super far with it yet and I think it’s gonna take me a while but it’s good fun.

It would be cool if the objects floating around you have a bit more 'character' Have them hover in the direction of enemies as a sort of automatic protection. Have some stand at the ready when aiming to shoot. ... It would also be cool if you could freeze objects in place and then use them as a platform. Or maybe having a feature where controlled object automatically form a path when standing near a ledge.

Consider exploring PID controllers to enhance the smooth floating of the block around its pivot. Alternatively, you can implement an acceleration force, resembling a spring with damping, for motion around the pivot point.

At least from the perspective of challenge/forcing players into enemies, you might benefit from creating a "tagging" mechanic, where the player can only use objects they have walked over and touched with their character. Can limit player power, force them into range of enemies, and creates a minigame of trying to reposition enemies to get to potential weapons

the first soundtrack was such a joy to hear :)

I think you're approaching the flow of game development properly. Instead of starting with "I want to make a game", it's better to start with a core mechanic prototype as you are doing. If you focus on things you feel like you'd need to make that game, and then get to the core mechanic of it, then realize it's not fun, you've just wasted a bunch of time. Good call on taking this approach! This idea is super cool, and I got a few ideas: I like the concept of how you can pull in surrounding items, I think you could get far by making different variations of that. Sorta like you started, where you have to put the cursor over the item to pull it in. I think you could use that for items that are further away from the player. Maybe use a box collider that's relatively wide which pulls in objects that you're looking at. Could be a slow pull first, and then with upgrades you could make it faster. If you go back to adding ranged enemies, one thing you could do to balance that out is to have a shield/repulse ability. When the bullets hit you, they'd get locked in place, and then you can shoot them out in a direction. Better to keep the relative positioning of the projectiles so that when you shoot them back out, there's variance where the shot lands. A harder idea to do would be to make the enemies ragdoll based, allow them to get tripped/knocked back. Focus certain types of objects as things that are used to prevent enemies from getting closer, and then others to do damage. You might also want their hitboxes to be more vulnerable, so that there's plenty of variety on how you take down a certain enemy. I recommend sticking with a philosophy of making the player's abilities strong (given the fact that telekinetic powers are pretty op) but giving them a low amount of health. I wish you luck on your journey, stick with it!

This would be an amazing and refreshing combat system if implemented into a game. I would love to see something like this in a PVP game

A lot of people will comment on things you can do to enemies; it's probably time to work on what your enemies do to you. I believe you should have 3 or so general types of enemies - grunts, brutes, and counters. Grunts are basic enemies. Their job is to be cannon fodder you can - and have to - mulch through to get to tougher foes. If your game has a progression system for your abilities, grunts may be dangerous initially, but quickly fall off as you get stronger, requiring greater numbers or assistance from more inherently-dangerous forms of enemies to be effective. For instance, typical soldiers with rifles, firing bullets you can block with objects or deflect telekinetically. Having grunts dynamically react to their environment to become more dangerous is fun - like for instance, leaving an object near a grunt may prompt them to pick up the object and toss it at you, dealing far more damage than normal. Keeps the players on their toes if the 'fodder' enemies can sometimes be dangerous in their own right if allowed to be. Brutes are large threats - inherently dangerous single opponents that early on, present a major obstacle, and later on serve as the spearhead of combined-unit encounters. These enemies have weapons that are genuinely dangerous to you, the ability to survive or avoid several hits, may require special mechanics to take out, and must be made a priority to get rid of before they take you out. As an example, super soldiers that can endure barrages of objects, or perhaps catch objects hurled at them from the front and toss them back at you or weaponize them. Perhaps a teleporting enemy that's hard to pin down and armed with a sniper weapon that you have to anticipate and counter-snipe while he's aiming - fire too soon and he'll teleport out of the way, fire too late and get shot by a round too fast and accurate to stop. Counters aren't inherently dangerous on their own, but they make other enemies more dangerous - either by improving those enemies, or hindering you. These can be mixed into packs of grunts or used alongside brutes to make encounters more dangerous. An example would be an enemy that forces telekinetically floating objects to drop to the ground via a pulse or aura that they emit, making you have to consider which objects you attack them with, from where, and when in order to disable them. Perhaps an enemy that grants other enemies a regenerating shield that can absorb a few smashes, forcing you to hit them with a prolonged barrage and fully commit to killing each enemy, otherwise they'll regenerate their shield and resume fighting. You can make counters into lynchpins of encounters; have a counter make an encounter very difficult, but if you can find the counter and take them out first, dismantling the rest of the foes becomes routine. Just some thoughts and philosophy. Use or not as you see fit.

Gun enemies where the players can stop bullets or the player can hold enemies like force choking, pushing, pulling ect. Or or or maybe the player can re shape objects, like for example stone the player can re shape it into spikes, for more thowing damage.

Ik this would be a competely different direction but it reminds me of some of the water bending styles in Alta

I have some ideas. You could add a first person mode in the settings or somewhere for people who don't really like third person. You could also add some icons to show you when ur cooldown is over. You can make fragile boxes like wooden boxes or even glass break after 1 or 2 hits. Hell you can even make the ragdoll of the enemy as somethibg you can shoot you you can make them explode or break into little pieces when killed. An FOV slider would be very much appreciated and dome magical effects on ur hand when you do the telekenises and around the boxes, like some particles. You can make some various objects be supported by other objects so when you take the bottom one the one on top falls down on an enemy. Also an enemy cover system would be cool. I have other ideas but i will stop here lol. I don't even know if you will read this.

some cool ways to attack kinetically would be to affect the environment. Something like chandlers you can pull down on enemies, of ripping a fire hydrant out of the ground. some thing more ambitious would be to push and pull structures like walls and roofs.

A levitation skill to make yourself and/or enemies fly would be cool. Of course the amount of objects, or the weight (if that’s a mechanic you put in for balancing) that you can hold would be lower than on the ground, but I think it would be cool to be kinda like a floating wizard bitch throwing enemies through the air. At some point, a telekinetic shield might be needed, so maybe when you have no objects floating around you it could work like that one matrix scene where the dude stops a ton of bullets, and if you have things floating around you it’ll use those items. Maybe if you make some hard hitting attacks for the enemies, this could be used as a nice one time shield, so there would be a nice balance of offense and defence to keep yourself safe. And at that point, adding a dash may not be very out of place in a game like this. *I am just now realizing that most of these ideas are very similar to the game Control, but idk if it has a different premise I think it’s fine. As far as I know, they don’t own telekinesis.

Another way you could use the bullet catching mechanic is instead make a wall that catches any objects that fly through it. Since its a big area you could make it so it only catches small items.

Some objects should have a direction when thrown. Your sledgehammer stops spinning when thrown & goes head first or bladed weapons would always turn to go blade first. It could have to do with the weight of the item, like the hammer, which would logically go head first. You could then add a combat key that makes them spin around the target like a tornado, which would make bladed weapons chop them up. You could then unlock the ability to target multiple enemies as a means of progression so after it chops up one it moves to the next but in the meantime, that second, third, or more enemy could do damage to you. The enemies should have a health meter before breaking apart & the pieces of the enemy should become things you can also throw, like the head or arms. Another combat key could be bat swing where you target an object & when activated, it treats the object like a bat so it is at an angle to the target until you hit a key to swing with the mouse or joystick. Make interact-able assets for the walls & ceilings that when highlighted, you can use the mouse to pull them off. You could add a delay with vibration which would give the illusion of the piece having to break free. You could give your enemies guns & have a cone of effect where you could catch bullets & other projectiles but take damage if you don't catch them in time. You could also use the physics to have objects bounce & ricochet so they do damage to you unless you catch them again.

Maybe you could add the ability to hit an object with another object to send it flying. So if you have a pile of objects, you can send them all into the air by hitting the pile with another object. And along with this, maybe add a maximum range to how far away an object can be when you pick it up, to encourage players to send them flying in other ways. You can still send all objects in the air towards a random target no matter the distance, but the act of getting them in the air should be a bit more difficult, and they should also not stay in the air too long, so it starts to get challenging if you want to have a lot of floating objects.

There is a game for vr, which is basicly earth bending combat arena. It's looks really fun and kool. This can definitely be a thing, too.

yo I love the direction this is going, telekinesis is wicked fun. But the tagline of making a combat game without weapons just begs the question, "Haven't you heard of martial arts?"

Reminds me of rumble VR, it's avatar style earth bending made very competetive. You might get some inspiration if you look at that, it's very well done

here a few ideas in the form of optional upgrades to make the player feel more free, these skills are found through out the map and are optionally used but can only have a few at a time -'mind transfer', kinda like in superhot, where you can swap bodies with enemies but your main body is vulnerable, if the new body dies, the players dies as well, so the player is forced to use it wisely -'organic telekinesis' player would be able to move enemies with mind and also levitate -'crush' this one is a bit tricky but the idea is that if you have a material system like @XoneFobic menition then you could also add that things like wooden crates could be crushed and then it would pack more of a punch then it normally 'wood' -'fan' the opposite of crush instead of crushing the wooden crate you would make it explode and effect a wide area but deal less damage - player can hold only 1 super at a time and they cannot use it back to back for a while, this is like a trump card> -'FALL' (super ability) this one is upgrade has a long cooldown or something to make it fair to use, essien tally you bring all enemies to their ground for a short time, but if its a boss its even shorter -'starfall', hurls a small meteorite from space at an enemies -'heart stopper', this one is not an upgrade rather a weakness, you would have 'stamina' bar but for your telekentic ability, the more items your hold/ the more weight you hold the less stamina, and if you lose all your 'stamina' while holding objects you start losing health