My kids told me fighting was their favourite part of Brackenmere, and that it was dull. In one day it became a one-button fight with five moves you discover by playing, a maze full of easy monsters, and a slow-motion kill cam that a research agent had warned me against.
The morning after the overnight rounds, I had something from the kids to add. "When my kids play, one of the main enjoyments they got was the fighting. However it's a bit basic right now, and has no way of being slick, fun, different moves etc... and it's not obvious if it's happening in first person view."
They had a second complaint: not enough monsters in the first quest, the hedge maze. "They prefer more kills of easy monsters over 1 big kill (at the start at least, and obviously bosses need to be harder)."
The finisher kill cam, out of the hero's eyes and round the fight, by the end of the day.
Where it stood
Combat was not untouched. The night before, an overnight round on "combat, coolness, slickness, fun" had added damage numbers, gold crits, a slowed beat when a boss fell, a potion key and a "helping hand" setting that softens monsters' blows for younger players.
None of that touched what the kids actually do, which is press attack over and over. The agent's look at the code was blunt: the "special moves" needed you to hold attack and tap a direction, and "the kids are unlikely to find that." The hedge maze held two goblins, by my own call three days earlier.
Research first, then my ideas
I listed what I thought they wanted: different moves "without complicated key order presses", visuals, "slow mo's with camera panning", looking cool. "My kids want hit space bar lots of times (although could hold?)." But I asked for the opposite of obedience: "Do not take my ideas as verbatim, run a research agent first to help find the best solutions for this."
The research came back with a ranked list drawn from Arkham, Zelda, Doom, Hades and LEGO, and it disagreed with me twice. Left-click should attack, because Minecraft and Roblox have already taught it, and Space should stay jump so that jump plus attack can be a slam. And a camera swooping out of the head was "the main nausea risk", as the research put it; better a short slow-motion beat in first person.
The idea that stuck was that moves come from the situation, not key sequences. Mash for a three-hit chain. Hold and release to spin. Jump and swing to slam. Run and swing to dropkick.
"Everything reads well above," I replied, and added the bit I cared about: "Dazed glowing enemy can give the child a chance to breathe and understand a new move." Then two more notes. "First person feels a little close to the monster sometimes, especially prevalent with the 'orc' where you are almost in its arms... they want to 'see' the action." And: "I think we need another 'cool attack' move."
Before: Ironjaw swings from 1.33 m, and you see his belt and his arms.
After: the same fight, the same script. He swings from 2.13 m and you can see what is coming.
One morning, two builders
The agent picked the third small monster itself, the Puffcap, a knee-high mushroom that bursts into spores, and the extra move, a Chain Dash: press just after a kill and the hero dashes to the next monster. I approved the two concept pictures before any models were bought.
The Thornling and the Puffcap as I approved them, before Meshy turned them into rigged models.
Two builders ran side by side, one on the fight and one on the maze, each with a Codex review. Every press now lunges so it connects, and hits everything in its arc. Big monsters fight from further back. And while a child still has moves to learn, a blow that would kill leaves the monster dazed and glowing, and play pauses on a card that teaches one new move.
The first teaching daze: a Thornling on one health, and the card for the first move.
The maze became seven paced encounters: a lone Thornling, a pair of Puffcaps, packs of Swarm spiders, a breather, then the goblins near the exit.
Puffcaps waiting down a hedge corridor, in first person as the kids play.
Under the hood
The lead's final run mashed through the whole maze with the attack button alone: 18 monsters in 247 presses, a combo up to x15. It also caught a failure: against small monsters, aim assist tipped the view 30 to 45 degrees down at the grass. It now stops at 20.
"I don't see the slow mo"
Then I played it. "I don't see the slow mo, how slow is it?" Very short, it turned out: a 0.08 s freeze, then quarter speed for half a second. The agent suggested something bigger and I said "Go with your idea."
It was still not what I meant. "This still needs work, some camera direction, can we pan around the monster slightly, slightly zoom out, before panning back into action. Let's make it a cinematic 'thing'."
That was exactly what the research had warned against. I asked anyway, because I know who plays it. The agents kept what guards they could: the hero cannot be hurt while the camera is out, the shot is saved for finishers and a group's last monster, and Settings can switch it off.
Then I kept pushing. "Okay, this is a lot better. But let's even go further with the kill cam. Let's let it pan around for longer... as it goes back to the user, it kind of like accelerates back into him." I wanted the combo counter off its white box, "pure on a transparent background... like a kind of times two kind of pops out and grows and disappears." Then: "A lot better, but can we start that shot now earlier, so we see the full swing and kill." And finally: "Can we always do the slow mo when you kill a boss? I've just killed Ironjaw but I didn't get the slow mo."
Under the hood
Five merges in about two hours. The shot grew to a 40 degree orbit over 2 s at a fifth of normal speed, about 3.1 s in all and 4.5 s for a boss. Ironjaw missed out because the game only counted monsters that roar as bosses, and he is an orc.
Starting from the swing meant the game had to know, as the swing began, whether it would kill. The first frames showed two surprises: Ironjaw went see-through, his daze glow reading as a ghost from outside, and the white hit flash slowed with the world. Both were fixed before it merged.
The rest of the day
That afternoon's punch list had more fighting in it. "My kids wanted to, thought it was funny to try and hit the sheep and the pigs... They can't ever kill a person or a sheep or anything." Now a swing startles an animal or makes a person flinch, and the first time Bram says: "word of a hero who swats sheep gets round quick." And "the little wood nymph things are slightly too small", so the Thornlings grew by half.
The new combo popping in, with everything else at once. Of a screen like this I wrote: "This whole overlay here is quite a mess."
Notices now stack under the gold, top right. The next day: "Some different death sounds would be really good rather than just the same one." Each family of monster now dies with its own crack, pop or squelch.
What I took from it
Asking for research before my ideas paid off. It turned "hit space bar lots of times" into one button that does six things, with no sequence to learn.
But its advice on comfort was for players in general, and I was building for two in particular. The kill cam came from playing it, saying one line and seeing a merge within the hour, five times over.
My kids told me fighting was their favourite part of Brackenmere, and that it was a bit dull. In one day it changed completely. Now you just press one button, the hero does different moves depending on what is happening, the first maze is full of small easy monsters, and a big finishing blow gets a slow-motion camera that circles the fight.
The new slow-motion finish, swinging out and round the fight as Ironjaw the orc goes down.
What the kids said
They loved fighting, but there were no cool moves and it was hard to tell what was happening. They also wanted more monsters: lots of easy ones to beat at the start, rather than one big one. The old special moves needed a fiddly key combination, and the kids were never going to find it.
Research first
I had my own ideas, but I asked one of my AI helpers to look at how other games do it first. It came back with lessons from games like Zelda and LEGO, and it disagreed with me twice. Left click should attack, because Minecraft and Roblox have already taught kids that. And a camera that swoops out of the hero's eyes could make players feel sick.
The best idea was that moves come from what you are doing, not from remembering buttons:
Keep pressing for a three-hit combo.
Hold and let go to spin.
Jump and swing to slam the ground.
Run and swing to dropkick.
Swing just after a kill to dash to the next monster.
I added one thing: when there is a new move to learn, a monster that would have died is left dazed and glowing instead, and the game pauses to show you the move. It gives a child a moment to breathe.
A dazed monster and a card teaching the first move.
Seeing the fight
The big orc used to stand so close you could only see his belt and arms. Big monsters now fight from further back, so you can see the swing coming.
Before: the orc is so close you only see his belt and arms.
After: the same fight, with the orc further back so you can see what is coming.
More monsters
The hedge maze got two new small monsters, the Thornling and a knee-high mushroom called the Puffcap that bursts into spores. The maze is now a run of little fights, with a breather in the middle and the goblins near the end.
Two Puffcaps waiting down a hedge path.
The slow motion I wanted
Then I played it, and I couldn't even see the slow motion. It was over in a blink. I asked for more: pan around the monster, zoom out a little, then rush back into the action. "Let's make it a cinematic 'thing'."
That was exactly what the research had warned against. I asked anyway, because I know who plays it. So the hero can't be hurt while the camera is away, it only happens for finishing blows and bosses, and it can be switched off in Settings. Over the next couple of hours I kept nudging it: longer, starting earlier so you see the whole swing, and always for a boss.
The rest of the day
The kids also thought it was funny to hit the sheep and pigs. Nothing can ever be hurt in the village, but now an animal startles or a person flinches, and the blacksmith warns you that word gets round. Each kind of monster now has its own death sound too.
Too many messages at once in the middle of the screen. These now stack neatly in the top corner.
What I learned
Asking for research before my own ideas paid off: it turned "hit space bar lots of times" into one button that does lots of things. But the advice was for players in general, and I was building for two in particular. The slow-motion finish came from playing it, saying what I wanted and seeing it change within the hour, five times over.
My son voted for goblins running into the village, so the game's one safe place got a fight. The first raid worked in the tests and meant nothing to a player; it took my own walk on the green, a few dictated paragraphs and a day of fixes to make it a raid you notice, can win and can never really lose.
Brackenmere had five worlds that no quest sent you to. I asked for the quest ledger to be redrawn as a map, sent it to two AI reviewers to play it in their heads, and the agents built the chapter that threads those worlds into the story: the Five Stones.
I played Brackenmere end to end and found an errand chain: talk, fetch, return, repeat. Three AI designers diagnosed it independently, my son voted on their ideas, and by the evening every quest left a mark on the village.
The finisher kill cam, out of the hero's eyes and round the fight, by the end of the day.
Before: Ironjaw swings from 1.33 m, and you see his belt and his arms.
After: the same fight, the same script. He swings from 2.13 m and you can see what is coming.
The Thornling and the Puffcap as I approved them, before Meshy turned them into rigged models.
The first teaching daze: a Thornling on one health, and the card for the first move.
Puffcaps waiting down a hedge corridor, in first person as the kids play.
The new combo popping in, with everything else at once. Of a screen like this I wrote: "This whole overlay here is quite a mess."
