Game Overview

This famous quote from the co-creator of Spider-Man has come to symbolise taking action with the privileges and benefits that one has over others. With that mind, one of the primary aims of this project is to ask of its players –

“What would YOU do with great power?” 

In Nemesis: Showdown (N:S), free-roam Sapphire City, saving and protecting its residents as the Superhero, or scheme and cause chaos as the Supervillain. Your opponent will play the opposite role as your Nemesis. 

Play the way you want; you can focus on combat and hunting down your Nemesis, or you can fulfil your role's duties such as saving/robbing the civilians, and win that way - it's your choice!

How to win a Match

The state of Sapphire City and its residents is represented by its Paradigm Points (PP). There are 100 PP available, which are shared 50-50 between Hope (Hero) and Despair (Villain) at the start of a match. Most actions in the game will provide you a small share of PP. Defeat your Nemesis in combat for a larger sum of PP, or complete the various tasks and events across the City to gain incremental PP over time. The Player who maximises their Paradigm share to 100, or has the most at the end of a match wins.

Design Goals & Philosophy

The goal for this game is to create a tactical, competitive game that reinforces the superhero/supervillain narrative with every mechanic, but is ideally not so competitive that casuals cannot play.

In the Magic the Gathering player analysis Model 'Timmy, Johnny, Spike', wherein 'Timmy' players care about the quality of their win but not the quantity, 'Johnny' players value winning in their unique way meta-be-damned, and 'Spike' players will play whatever is necessary to grind out wins as consistently as possible, one of N:S' leading design philosophies is to understand which type of player each Hero and Villain appeals to. However I want every character in N:S to appeal to the 'Johnny' type of player, by enabling room to experiment and play the game their way.

Of course, considerations are taken for Timmy and Spike players as well, as all players are welcome. To appease Timmys/Tammys - social interaction (like emotes/voice/text chat) visceral satisfaction from high risk/high reward playstyles are important, and for Spikes, characters with a high skill ceiling and skill expression will be designed.

Events & Currency Systems

Nemesis Showdown has an data-driven event system, which spawns various tasks to complete around Sapphire City, depending on eligibility rules and weighted chance, but a core part of gameplay is that players have the ability to create objectives that will directly impact your Nemesis too. Completing events will provide players with their individual Resource/currency that they can spend to perform tasks or get help from NPC minions for a tactical advantage.

Player-created Objective - Plant/Defuse Bomb

The first Villain developed for the prototype is a Kingpin-meets-Doc-Ock type, who utilises the criminal underworld and advanced tech to gain power. Through gameplay, the Villain accumulates their Resource - 'Money', which they can spend on various actions like creating a secret lair they can fast-travel to, or to Plant a Bomb somewhere in Sapphire City!

This creates an objective for the Hero to handle. She can spend some precious time to defuse the bomb, or spend some of her Resource - 'Reputation' to influence Police NPCs to defuse the bomb for her! However - if the Villain spent extra Money to station some of his Henchmen to protect it - then the Police won't be able to reach the bomb without the Hero's help!

This example system of emergent gameplay and counterplay is designed to provide satisfactory benefits and worthy trade-offs, whilst allowing the players enough agency to play the scenario their way. This philosophy is the driving force around all events and objectives, with the primary goal being to create a series of tactical choices that also feel immersive to the Superhero/Supervillain fantasy.

Nemesis Showdown is planned to include an array of varied Heroes and Villains to choose from (every match is Hero vs Villain), each with unique playstyles and win conditions. You can aim to focus on battle or roleplay/objectives with any character, but each will have their strengths and weakness to take into account.

And then there will always be your fated Nemesis scheming around the corner will be planning your downfall. Overcome them and show Sapphire City and the world just how super you really are!

Key Features implemented so far:

- Data driven, AI-controlled event system using Behaviour Trees, EQS and a Data Table to spawn Hero/Villain events out of sight, with event-specific cooldowns and spawn chances.

- Character architecture built using Unreal's GAS framework.

- Replication. Important aspects of the game are replicated between clients, and event-led where appropriate for optimisation. Network relevancy is also managed via distance.

- Multiplayer Lobbies. Players can host a match lobby via LAN connection, with the ability to connect to players via Steam coming in future.

- Replicated NPC Civilians using Unreal's Mass AI & Zone Graph framework

- NPC Combat AI using Behaviour Trees & EQS

Upcoming features:

- More combat abilities

- More combat NPC types (Melee, Large Brute)

- Command or Enlist Henchmen/Police to help you 

- Villain Secret Lairs (fast travel system)

- Combat/Protection/Defuse Events

- Minimap

- HUD & UI improvements

Longer Term Additions:

- Additional characters with new themes

- New Maps

Copyright Notice© Rolandson Thomas, 2026. All rights reserved.

This project and its original concepts, characters, settings, and narrative are the intellectual property of the author.

Third-party images, assets, or references included in this project remain the property of their respective creators and are used here strictly for academic, illustrative, or reference purposes under fair dealing/fair use principles.