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ABOUT NYAN HEROES:

Nyan Heroes is a PC competitive team-based third-person shooter where players control heroic cats piloting powerful mechs in high-octane battles. Combining class-based combat with dynamic movement and unique abilities, the game blends fast-paced shooter mechanics with strategic hero play.

As Principal Combat Designer on Nyan Heroes, I spearheaded the design and development of the game’s core combat systems. 


My responsibilities included shaping weapon mechanics, player movement, hero abilities, and combat pacing to deliver a responsive, competitive third-person shooter experience.


I collaborated closely with animation, engineering, and art teams to ensure systems felt impactful and cohesive, while maintaining balance and clarity in a fast-paced, hero-based environment.

FEATURES:

  • multiplayer team-based shooter
  • third person shooter
  • class-based combat
  • strategic ability use
  • responsive gunplay
  • dynamic cat-like locomotion system
  • PvP game modes
  • stylized sci-fi aesthetic

TRAILERS

MY CONTRIBUTIONS

  • Using the power of Unreal Engine, I prototyped, implemented and balanced the core combat systems and hero design.
  • Designed the weapon system, integrated and balanced all the weapons in the game along with their specific behavior.
  • Architected the camera system and oversaw the implementation to support various framings, transitions, camera lags and interpolations across various characters and between different states.
  • Ideated, designed, prototyped, polished fifteen abilities for the seven characters present in the game.
  • Worked together with Engineering to develop one of the core functionalities of the abilities for placing various objects on the battlefield.
  • Created and adjusted the hitboxes for all the seven characters.
  • Tuning and balancing the Heroes main stats.

Designed to support fast-paced combat, the weapon system features distinct archetypes tailored to adapt to various playstyles. Weapons are split into three main categories:

  • bullet-based hitscan - typical weapons present in most shooters with bullets stored in physical magazines and a regular reload mechanic
  • energy-based hitscan - features a heating / overheating mechanic that allows the players to better time and manage their amount of shots. their overheating state increases the longer you keep shooting
  • ballistic explosive projectiles -  featuring physical projectiles with travel speed and affected by gravity that require players to rely on both on anticipation and their AOE damage

In terms of classes, the entire spectrum is covered:

  • Primary Weapons:
      • Prophecy - assault rifle (bullet-based weapon)
      • Zephyr - SMG (energy-based weapon)
      • Malice - pump action shotgun (bullet-based weapon)
      • Legionnaire - bolt action sniper (bullet-based weapon)
      • Sentinel - DMR (energy-based weapon) 
      • Purrbomb Launcher - grenade launchers (ballistic explosive weapon)
      • Hellfire - RPG (ballistic explosive weapon)
  • Secondary Weapons:
      • Jaguar - handgun (energy-based weapon)
      • Clawzi - SMG (bullet-based weapon)
      • Shortfuse - sawed-off shotgun (energy-based weapon)
      • Monsoon - handgun (energy-based cat weapon)


Main challenges:

  • creating an exciting experience in the context of a third person and multiplayer shooter taking into account the 3D discrepancies between where the player is aiming with the central crosshair and various hit-traces between the camera relative position's trace and the weapon trace (Line of Sight vs Line of Fire).
  • creating a satisfyingly experience when shooting the weapons, hitting the enemies through various elements animations, camera shakes, hit reactions, sound cues and UI reticle hit confirmations and death confirmations.
  • keeping an overall balanced weapons system that would provide all the weapons contextual advantage no matter what hero class would have it equipped.


Samples:

The camera system in Nyan Heroes was designed to support high-mobility, third-person combat with maximum clarity and control. It dynamically adjusts to movement, abilities, and weapon use, ensuring strong situational awareness in both tight spaces and open arenas.

In order to achieve that I had to collaborate with level design to elaborate strict metrics for interiors and with engineering to develop a scalable system to support framings for various characters, movement state that supports both movement, abilities and gunplay. 


Main challenges:

  • creating a highly responsive and adjustable system scaled with mouse control input
  • proper framing for each character to reflect it's proportions and personality keeping in mind certain limitations
  • finding the sweet spots and balancing between characters proportions and minimizing the parallax effect
  • ensure smooth and expectable transitions between states to prevent motion sickness


Samples:

Each Guardian in Nyan Heroes features a unique set of abilities tailored to their class role, encouraging team synergy and tactical play. Abilities are designed to complement movement and weapon systems, offering a mix of offense, defense, utility, and mobility options.

Each hero was equipped with 4 abilities:

  • Weapon Augment - provides players a variety amount of options, allowing the player to find unique and imaginative ways of using their Guardian and assortment of weapons (duration & cooldown based)
  • Movement Ability - grants the Guardian a boost of movement allowing them to quickly reposition, traverse terrain and engage or disengage from combat (duration and cooldown based)
  • Ultimate Ability - special abilities that charge over time or depending on Guardian performance. They complete the Guardian theme, at the same time providing a powerful and memorable outcome
  • Passive Ability - they activate automatically or have effects that are always active without player interaction and they do not affect the game world directly

The game hosted a total of 7 Guardians and from the total number of abilities, I was responsible for 15 abilities out of the 24 abilities implemented in the game (including 3 Guardians full design): 

        • 6 Weapon Augment Abilities 
        • 3 Movement Abilities 
        • 4 Ultimate Abilities 
        • 2 Passive Abilities


Main challenges:

Ideating, designing, prototyping and supervising engineering implementation of the abilities, adjusting and balancing them.


Samples:

I designed a flexible placeable system used across multiple hero abilities, allowing players to deploy interactive objects with distinct tactical functions. While unified under a shared core framework, each implementation introduced unique behaviors—ranging from area control and protective barriers to traps and utility zones. The modularity of the system allowed easy tuning for placement rules that fit each ability while maintaining expected outcomes.


The system consisted of a hologram attached to the pawn, indicating the placement position by adjusting camera pitch and yaw and the confirmation of the outcome.


Key factors defining the versatility of the system:

  • minimum and maximum range
  • detection trace configuration from the camera
  • blacklisted classes to prevent placing on various actors or beyond different actors
  • possibility to project only on freely mid-air, project on floor, project on floors of various heights with adjustable visibility conditions
  • adjustable line of sight conditions related to the volume of the placed actors
  • using floor normal or using the same up vector as his pawn owner


Main challenges:

Developing a system that could evolve in time on future abilities but have a high reusability and modularity.

I defined and adjusted the entire hitbox system for all the characters to ensure precision, fairness, playability and competitivity for a fast-paced third person combat environment.

Key considerations included per-body part damage multipliers, projectile and hitscan traces handling, consistent feedback for both attacker and target.


Main challenges:

Keeping the capsules up to date with the frequent model changes, maintaining a well balanced experience between the capsules sizes character proportions and overall high speed combat pacing. An the same time, the anti-cheat measures imposed some limitations on certain aspects of the system.


Samples:

Project's Obituary

The project secured multiple funding rounds and gained strong early traction, at one point reaching the 4th most wishlisted title on the Epic Games Store (following the public playtests).


My contributions spanned from 2022 to 2025, during which the game attracted positive attention from the community and critics alike, especially for its fast-paced hero combat and vibrant art direction. 


Despite this momentum, the project ultimately closed in May 2025 due to lack of funding amid the broader decline of the Web3 market.


Nyan Heroes stands as an ambitious exploration of competitive hero design and a significant milestone in my work on large-scale multiplayer systems.