Project Berserk

What Is Project Berserk?

Project Berserk is an over-the-top 2D fighting game designed to shake up the fighting game formula through unique game modes and concepts!

Fighters have two meters: Health and Vigor! Hit the opponent to drain Health! Vigor is drained when blocking attacks. Lose all of it to enter Enervated, where the Fighter takes more damage for a period of time.

If you lose your Health while you still have Vigor, your Vigor acts as a secondary Health bar and begins to drain over time!

Lose both meters and you are defeated!

Controls

To access and manipulate the menus, use a computer mouse. From there, you can connect a controller or keyboard with the press of any button once you enter the Connect Controller Screen! For operating the Fighters, the following is a input list for both Controller (PlayStation, XBox, etc.) and Keyboard inputs:

Action	Controller Input	Keyboard Input
Move	Left Joystick or Direction Pad	A, D
Crouch	Down on Left Joystick or Direction Pad	S
Jump	Up on Left Joystick or Direction Pad for Straight Jump Add Left or Right for a Forward or Backward Jump	W W + A/D
Block	Right Trigger	Spacebar
Dash	Hold Left Trigger Add Backward Direction for Backward Dash	Left Shift Left Shift + A/D
Light Normal Attack	Left Button for Neutral Light Normal Attack Add Down, Forward Direction for the Downward and Forward variants Execute in the air for Aerial Light Normal Attack	J J + S, J + A/D J in the air
Strong Normal Attack	Left Button for Neutral Strong Normal Attack Add Down, Forward Direction for the Downward and Forward variants Execute in the air for Aerial Strong Normal Attack	L L + S, L + A/D L in the air
Light Special Attack	Left Button for Neutral Light Special Attack Add Down, Forward Direction for the Downward and Forward variants Execute in the air for Aerial Light Special Attack	I I + S, I + A/D I in the air
Strong Special Attack	Left Button for Neutral Strong Special Attack Add Down, Forward Direction for the Downward and Forward variants Execute in the air for Aerial Strong Special Attack	K K + S, K + A/D K in the air
Vigor Ability	Left Bumper + Neutral Direction : Vigor Parry Left Bumper + Forward Direction : Vigor Sprint Left Bumper + Upward Direction : Vigor Drop	H H + A/D H + W

The Fighters

Fighter	Background	Special Fighting Mechanic
Renegade	An electrical engineer who can use lightning to power himself up in battle	Can strike himself with lightning to power up his next special move!
Dreadnought	A gunslinger teamed up with Renegade who can do trick shots in combat!	Can set up mirrors that when shot reflects the bullets towards opponents!
Lilac	A aromatherapist who learned how to box after the loss of her husband, The Sandman	Can sleep walk to regenerate Health and Vigor!
Idle	A mobile rocket-boot wielding assassin who never stays in one place!	Can use Rocket Fuel to extend her mobility when executing attacks!

Story Concept

After a major international war, the world is decimated and nations have fallen. To have one last shot at revitalizing humanity, the remaining world leaders come to together to form Potentia, a utopia serving as a polestar for technological and cultural development. However, they no longer trust humans with their full psyche, so they embed neurological implants into all inhabitants to limit their ability to feel anger. It does not react well to people with intense emotional trauma, but it seemed to be fine for a bit.

One mysterious night, an electromagnetic surge sweeps the nation that affects all of the implants. Some are unaffected, some go braindead, and those with intense trauma begin to gain immense supernatural abilities, where they are then called Berserk Cases. What caused this surge? What is going on with the Berserk Cases? Is Potentia really the utopia that it was sought out to be? All of this and more is unveiled as the main narrative of the game follows these Berserk Cases as this glorious utopia falls to rubble.

Development Background

This game was created, designed, animated, and programmed (and other relevant verbs I cannot think of) entirely by Luke Schiltz, and although the concept for this game has existed since October 2022, development did not start until April 2023. Luke Schiltz is a Senior Computer Science student at NC State University interested in game development and artificial intelligence. This is Luke Schiltz's very first game project!!!

Additionally, Luke manages a team of ~11 people who are interested in continuing Project Berserk's development, but the current build of the game does not include any work created by the team members, only work done by Luke himself.

Development Roadmap

This is a very ambitious project with a clearly defined roadmap. This game is intended to introduce what is expected in the fighting game industry on top of many new concepts to shake up the formula.

What The Game Has Now

4 Fully-Developed, Unique Fighters	1v1 and up to 4-player Free-For-All Gamemodes
Expansive universal mechanics	Human and Computer Player support
Keyboard and Controller Support

The Next Steps

8 unique Fighters (and later 16!)	Training Mode, Tutorials, and Movelist Sheets
Unique Berserk States for every Fighter	Team Battle, Player vs. Enemy, and Boss Rush Gamemodes
Story Mode, with a crazy narrative and unique gameplay loop!