Ardent: Rise

Gameplay video

Overview

Ardent: Rise is a fantasy real-time action RPG built around party-based co-op PvE, with tank, damage and healing roles. It's my most substantial combat project: I owned the enemy and boss systems end to end and made them work in networked multiplayer, where every player in a party must experience the same fight, the same phase transitions and the same ability timing.

My role & the team

Contributed as the AI, boss and multiplayer combat programmer alongside the Potential Entertainment team.

What I built

• Designed and implemented all enemy AI across the game.
• Built every boss fight, including multi-phase boss encounters and their phase transitions.
• Implemented the bosses' ability sets and combat behaviours.
• Networked all combat and boss encounters for multiplayer co-op, keeping every player's fight in sync.
• Implemented the inventory system.
• Built UI systems for combat and progression.

The technical challenge

Multi-phase boss fights are hard on their own; making them fair in co-op is harder. Every player in a party has to see the same boss state, the same phase changes and the same telegraphed abilities at the same time — any drift breaks the encounter and the group's trust in it.

My engineering approach

I built the boss AI, phase logic and abilities to run authoritatively and replicate across the network, so phase transitions and ability timing stay consistent for the whole party. The enemy AI and combat were designed networked-first rather than bolted on afterwards.

Result

A deep, party-based co-op combat system with networked multi-phase bosses — currently in development and headed to Steam.