RuneBow

Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Genre: 3rd person on-rail shooter
Role: Project Lead & Game Design Lead
Itch.io: https://aieseattle.itch.io/runebow
Overview
RuneBow is a modern reimagining of an arcade-style on-rails shooter where players, as an enchanted archer, battle through waves of enemies to save a world on the brink of destruction. This project aimed to capture the intensity of classic arcade shooter experience while introducing modern PC visuals and responsive controls.
My Contribution
  • Led an interdisciplinary team of 8 to create a 20 minutes vertical sliced gameplay experience
  • Defined core player experience objectives and ensured smooth teamwork, unifying art and narrative vision for the team towards a common goal
  • Led Core Shooting Mechanic Design, Enemy AI Design, UI Design
  • Pitched an in-engine prototype and Gameplay Design Document
  • Exhibited game at PAX West 2025 AIE booth
Features
Classic arcade experience with modern graphics and controls
Use empowered Rune Arrows to fight varies types of enemies
Explore an expansive & cinematic level and survive till the end
Market Research & Vision
The "Problem": 
Most on-rail shooters are designed for arcade environments and rely on physical light-gun peripherals for precise, immersive shooting. On home consoles, motion-based controls (such as Joy-Cons) often feel less responsive and accurate, while PC players also need additional hardware to replicate the physical shooting experience.
House of the Dead on Nintendo Switch
Time Crisis on Arcade
Project Vision: 
"To recreate the classic intense arcade feel on PC with simple, intuitive mouse & keyboard controls. Easy to pick up within seconds and perfect for short PAX demo sessions."
Designing Intensity through Gameplay Controls: 
To reach our goal, I realized traditional mouse & keyboard controls alone can’t replicate the same immersive shooting experience of arcade setups, so we focused on thoughtful gameplay controls design rather than imitating arcade controls directly.
Player Movement Design Draft
Player Shooting Action Design Draft
With Player's path fixed, My proposal is to enhance shooting intensity via a bow-and-arrow system instead of firearms. A bow delivers limited firepower, making every shot count and discouraging mindless shooting. The charged-shot mechanic replaces the instant trigger pull, introducing risk–reward decision-making where holding the charge longer increases power but also increases player's vulnerability.
Player Movement and Controls
Keywords of Player Character: 
enchanted archer, fantasy world
Design & Early Sketch of Player Character
Mouse: Player Movement & Shooting: 
  • My goal for controls is “Easy to learn, but hard to master”.
  • I started by putting core actions right onto mouse, where the player controls both movement (popping out and dodging back to cover) and attack (aiming and firing) directly via holding left/right click.
  • Varying the charge time adjusts arrow damage, rewarding precise timing with critical hits and raising the skill ceiling.
Right Mouse Button: Movement
Left Mouse Button: Shooting
Keyboard: Special Abilities -- Runes: 
Additionally, players can press Q or W to cast special runes into their next shot, adding more variety to combat styles.
  • [Q] Key: Explosion Rune -- Player’s next shot explodes: A practical choice for taking advantage of terrain, taking multiple enemies in one shot and creating cinematic visual moments.
  • [W] Key: Chrono Rune -- Player’s next pop-out slows down enemies: Designed for handling complex encounters or specific enemy types, allowing players to slow or control the flow of battle.
Design Sketch of Explosion Rune
Design Sketch of Chrono Rune
Using Explosion Rune in-game
Using Chrono Rune in-game
Enemy Characters & Behavior
Keywords of Enemy Characters: 
Cult, corrupted, ancient bronze artifact appearance
Initial Sketches
Final Draft
Enemies are crucial to the core gameplay, I designed enemies to be challenging and engaging, putting pressure on the player for strategic decisions while having fun personalities rather than robotic.
Cult Archers are the primary enemies in the level, using bows and cover tactics similar to the player. They are designed to test core shooting and timing skills, with visually color-coded tiers that scale from easy to elite difficulty.
Flyers spawn from crystals and rush the player, exploding on impact even through cover. With low health but high threat, they test quick, precise aiming and encourage the use of Chrono Runes to neutralize them before they strike.
Weighted Behavior Tree
To achieve my goal, I proposed and implemented a behavior tree system, allowing Cult Archers to have different weighted chances to choose attack types (regular draw & quick draw) based on their rank (e.g., easy or elite). I also added a “taunt” action—enemies may taunt before their next attack, which becomes empowered, heightening tension in combat.
Example of weighted behavior tree of Cult Archer (Easy)
Example of weighted behavior tree of Cult Archer (Elite)
Archer Enemy performing "Taunt" Action, effecting their next shot
Weighted Table of Archer Enemy’s Blueprint code in UE5
Greybox Level Prototyping
To ensure everyone on the team has the same vision, I built an early greybox prototype to define the pacing and rhythm of combat encounters:  
  • The design goal is to incorporate both intense combat fights and presenting cinematic camera angles for player’s epic adventure.
  • This prototype features short cover-to-cover distance, close to mid range combats and tight enemy spawn locations, which served as a reference point for all designers, aligning everyone on enemy spacing and encounter flow.
Cover-to-cover Time: each encounter lasts 15-20 seconds, running from one cover to another takes 3-5 seconds to provide some time to take a breath in between intense fights.
Cover-to-cover Distance: prototype level showing relatively short cover-to-cover running distance, setting quick pace.
Examples of cinematic camera angles during combat
Achieved Level Design Results
Through the greybox prototype and three design iterations, we developed a polished, cinematic Dragon Valley level filled with unique and intense encounters. The level is divided into three distinct sections:
  • The Uphill Path introduces core controls and the basic cult archer enemy
  • The Broken Bridge adds flying enemies and cover-to-cover teleportation
  • The Corrupted Town combines both enemy types to test the player’s mastery
Level Design: detailed breakdown of Dragon Valley Level
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Uphill Path moments:
less single kind of enemies
Broken Bridge moments:
flying enemy challenges
Corrupted Town moments:
combined enemies challenges
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