Hammer Man Retrospective and Review

In September 2024, I decided to join a game jam and make a 3rd person action game in just one month. I had recently begun learning the basics of 3D modeling and animation in Blender, and was looking to incorporate some of those skills into game development. I created a demo called Hammer Man.

Development started with 3D modeling the hero. This tutorial by DevLogLogan was extremely helpful. I started with idle and running animations. I used video and still images from Monster Hunter Freedom Unite as reference for both. After getting the hero into the game engine with some basic movement controls, I started working on modeling the hammer. I used one of the hammers from MHFU as reference and added it to the player file in Blender. I spent the next 10 or so days just animating the hero. I had originally set on animating all the animations from MHFU, but ended up only making it through a subset of them. Animating characters is very hard and time consuming!

After some time implementing the attack animations, I moved on to enemy and level design. I originally wanted maybe 3 separate areas with different enemies in each. I quickly realized it would take way too much time for me to make all those assets on my own within the month, so I’m using models from quaternius. They are amazing and their models can be used with a creative commons license.

With the help of quaternius and a grass add-on, I eventually had a small level that looked interesting enough to explore. I also explored different output resolutions to see if bigger pixels gave the game a more interesting vibe. I ended up leaving a ‘crunchy’ toggle on the main menu. The gif below is a a deliberately lower resolution.

I began implementing enemies. Once again, I used models from quaternius, and then needed to learn how to implement 3D navigation. This was a fun challenge and took more time and effort than I expected. On top of everything, life can get complicated, and some things in my personal life made it difficult for me to spend time developing the game.

With a few days left, I scrambled to get something (anything) presentable. I quickly implemented enemy attacks and the ability for them to take damage and die. I finished the level design and tried to keep it open for a second level just in case I had a burst of motivation. I didn’t. I spent my last few hours adding in sound effects and music, and cleaning up the occasional bug. It’s still a bit of a mess, but I really enjoyed working on it.

I find the gameplay and themes of the Monster Hunter series inspiring and I hope to one day take another pass at a similar 3d action game that captures some of what inspires me.

Please play the demo, and let me know what you think!

Thanks,

nuzcraft