Mechanics

Movement

In Meaningless, Movement is key! In this first person shooter, there are no cover to cower behind when facing enemies. To avoid defeat, the player will have to constantly be on the move when encountering enemies. To do so, they will have to make use of the multiple abilities at their disposal. The movement of this game is at the very core of its gameplay loop.

Wall-Jump

The Wall-Jump can (only) be used  while airborne when near a vertical surface to jump up by pressing Space

Given how situational it is, the Wall-Jump can easily be the least used of the movement abilities. This, however, does not mean that it is not important. In fact, its main function is not movement, but recovery. Since the player has to stay in motion during combat, it can be very easy for them to lose their footing if they forget to pay attention to where they are going. The Wall-Jump allows the player to get back on top of a platform if they can make it back  to the edge before it is too late. The same principle also applies for when the player miscalculates a jump. This gives them a lot more leeway to experiment with the movement without having to suffer the consequences. To help accomplish this, the ability also redirects the player's velocity upwards. A smart player, under the right circumstances, can take advantage of this by combining it with other abilities. In the right hands this recovery mechanic can become a fierce movement ability. (This was not an intended feature, but I intend to leave it there because I think it can be very satisfying for someone to discover. I think obscure mechanics like this have a certain charm.)

Dash

The Dash can be used every few seconds to rapidly travel a short distance forward by pressing (Left)Shift

The Dash is the complete opposite of the Wall-Jump;  Since it replenishes on a timer rather than upon landing like the jump abilities, this is, more often than not, the ability the player can use the most frequently.  The fact that the player has to look where they want to go makes it inconvenient to use during combat. The player must stop shooting at the enemy if they want to dash in another direction. This means that during an encounter, they will also have to rely on different movement abilities if they want to inflict damage to enemies from a distance. When using a melee weapon however, it is a very useful to close the gap with an enemy. The directional control of this ability makes it one of the only ways to go downwards that is faster than falling, meaning it can be used to replenish the other abilities more quickly. (My favorite ability. I did my best to make it feel snappy ; ^)

Charged-Jump

The Charged-Jump can be used to jump very high into the air by holding the and releasing Space

This ability should be used with caution; when used in the wrong circumstances it can leave the player at the mercy of the enemies. Being airborne means a reduced mobility and getting attacked by more enemies. Its purpose is mainly to easily navigate through the unusual environment of the game because, otherwise, it can be very hard to navigate  in such a vertical environment.

I was thinking about removing this ability because it did not much to the gameplay (especially during combat) , but the game did not feel right without it. It was very hard to reach the higher places in the level and going traversing it was significantly less fun.

Combat

The combat is fairly straight forward and very easy by its own; The player has a gun and a sword to fight the enemies, most of which are stationary. The ennemies will not attack the player until they can have line of sight on the player within a certain range unless the player attacks them from further away in which case they will become aggroed and try to attack the player. Upon dying enemies have a certain chance to restore HP to the player. The player can try to detonate explosive barrels, found near most enemies, to kill them more quickly. The combat of this game, on its own, is not very interesting, let alone challenging. However, when combined with the movement system the result is a much more challenging experience as the player has to manage more variables at the same time. (The game was first designed around the movement, the enemies came a little later during development.)

Timer

Much like HP, when this reaches zero, the player dies. The player can get more time by killing enemies. This mechanic is meant to push players to take more risks and encourage a more agressive playstyle.

The player does not really need to play aggressively because enemies restore large amount of time, even leaving enough time at the end to explore the level and find its secrets. (Just in case that is not enough, the last checkpoint disables the timer so the player can really explore as much as they want)

Ability Usage Limit (Scrapped)

The amount of times the player could use an ability used to be limited. The player could replenish some a small amount of uses by destroying some explosive barrels matching the ability's color (the Wall-Jump is  blue, the Charged-Jump, yellow and the Dash is purple). Those barrels were hidden in various places and they were very annoying to find. The abilities were really not balanced for that, the only  truly useful ability for traversing the level was the Charged-Jump and it was almost impossible to reach the end without hoarding them. This also made the choice which path the player wanted to pick to traverse the level (the two paths after getting the sword) very uninteresting because the upper path was a lot more advantageous just because of the height. Furthermore, most people who tested the game, at that time did not enjoy this system and asked me why it was there.