Create combos, combat and cause chaos in 2022 with the videogame ENENRA

Looking for an adrenaline, action packed PC indie videogame to cure your gaming itch? IndieBloom unleash to you, ENENRA.

Smoke and shadows

Started solely by Zahid Ali Jeelani from the UK, ENENRA began after he graduated from university and was looking for a job within the games industry, but was sadly met with a lot of rejections.

Rightly so as I had no experience or any projects outside of university. I applied for a level designer role with a company called Dambuster and they sent me a test to complete. The test was to produce to a level with no external assets. Here is what my attempt looked like - I did not get the job however I did get great feedback which fueled the desire to make another project. I was told having a different variety of enemies with purpose is what I lacked. I then met some friends in a coffee shop and with a pen and paper I brainstormed ideas of what people want to play, what they are interested in and what they want to see. An action role playing game seemed to come up many times, paired with my love for hack and slash games I began development of ENENRA.

With the help of freelancers and asset stores, the world of ENENRA has been made by Zahid. ‘I also received some help off a developer, Arran Healy, an Experience Designer who had blocked out a level to help me build on top of and learn from him.’

Aside from video games, films such as The Raid drew inspiration from its cinematic choreography while recently Arcane from Riot’s style of action cutscenes.

The word ENENRA is a monster made of smoke and shadows, based on different Yōkai (demons in Japanese folklore) which perfectly complimented the fast-paced combat ideas Zahid had in mind. ‘Originally the game was actually called Tempus, as the story was focused around time travel and time abilities. Once I decided a location for the game, a cyberpunk future Japan’. Together with a friend, they went through a list of different Yōkai until they both arrived at ENENRA.

Hack and slash

Here at IndieBloom, the main thing that grabbed our attention about ENENRA was its impressive combat and wall mechanics. We were keen to ask Zahid on how this worked.

I started with zero knowledge on how to make combat mechanics and the game actually started as a first-person shooter! Here is a small snippet of the first clip of development: I went through a process of learning absolutely everything I could using online material, documentation and experimentation which was the best learning method for me. The combat system in simple terms takes into account the input of the player and adds them as a numerical value to determine which animation / attack to play next. It began as simple as that until I started adding dodging, perfect dodging, aerial combat, aerial to ground combat and so on. The teleport traversal system was built in 2 months and takes into account where the player teleports and what objects are around them and behaves accordingly. I also made it so it considers the direction of the camera so if the player is looking to the right side of a wall teleport point, they would wall run right!

With this process in place, the biggest challenge for Zahid was the hardware he was using;

I was using an old computer which you could see in my uploads the game was not performing well. I want to create a detailed world with different biomes, cutscenes and a lot of particles, however I was unable to until I recently purchased a new PC with the help of donations for ENENRA. You can see the massive differences as most of my game was shown in empty maps, this wasn’t out of choice but a necessity to make the game run.

Beating that setback allowed the teleport traversal system to work alongside combat, pairing the two strong points of ENENRA which in turn has really made the game feel different 🦾

Plans are to release ENENRA on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo(if possible) consoles and PC. Following on from this, Zahid explains ‘Creative freedom is a blessing and I feel with my game I will satisfy the needs of 1000s of people, by creating something which takes all the good parts of different games and then making them work harmoniously together.’

All this hard work, dedication and commitment sees a day on ENENRA resemble,

A typical work day has me waking up, heading to work and leaving around 4.30PM / 5PM to come home and work on ENENRA till around 9PM. I then go to the gym with my housemate and come back around 11. I continue to work from 11 till around 1AM / 2AM.

Valuable lessons learnt along the way have been to ‘Make macros and functions for everything! Learn how to improve your workflow and keep your script clean. Dirty coding is fine, but ALWAYS go back and clean. Streamlining is a huge benefit for a developer.’ The last piece of golden advice we ask is ‘Any tips for anyone trying to make their own videogame?’ The answer,

Don’t be afraid to experiment, anyone can copy a tutorial from YouTube but what makes your game different will be the fact you physically sat there, experimented and learnt. Take your experimentation and make small games out of them, make small mechanics, compare with other developers and see how you could do things better or teach others.

The road to success…

Being on furlough for his previous job during COVID lockdowns allowed Zahid to spend the good part of each day learning and experimenting with Unreal. ‘I also managed to get a job with Ninja Theory as a Junior Combat Designer and moved out of my home town!’ 🥳🙌 Simply put, Zahid says ‘I believe in being focused and achieving regardless of what is happening around you.’ 2022 will be a busy year for ENENRA.

ENENRA’s roadmap

Furthermore Zahid shares, ‘I also would like to mention we have a group of developers, both well known and up and coming which support each other and are looking to collaborate, I would like them to be honorable mentions.’ This link gives you all the details of those games.

If you’re a gaming fan (like us at IndieBloom) of titles such as Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Titanfall 2 or Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, definitely download and keep up with the development of ENENRA via the various social channels on Linktree. Many thanks once again to Zahid for allowing us to explore more about him and the game, we are definitely excited to see what the future holds!