Cheryl & Donna’s Cardio Combat

Game Overview

Cheryl & Donna’s Cardio Combat is a retro beat’em up where two fitness queens dive straight into a pastel cartoon world to reclaim their time slot and put the residents of Heartland back in their place.

Project Context

This game was developed during the Ubisoft Game Lab Competition 2026 in 10 weeks. The team was composed of 3 programmers from UQAC and 5 3D artists from NAD-UQAC.

Theme and mandate

• 80s-90s
• Multiplayer Couch game
• All Ages
• Only D-pad and 2 buttons for the controls.

Tools

This game was developed using Unreal Engine 5.

My Work

UI

I worked with the Common UI plugin to create menus that can be navigated using a controller.

State Machine

The character uses a state machine to manage its different states and the actions available in each one. For example, when the character is in the “Attacking” state, certain actions, such as movement, are disabled.

Buffer and Combo

The combat system allows the player to perform combos, with different attacks being triggered when attacks are chained together.

To make combos feel more fluid, I also implemented an input buffering system. When an attack is already in progress and the player inputs the command for the next attack, the input is temporarily stored. Once the current attack ends, the next attack is automatically triggered. This allows attacks to flow seamlessly without requiring perfectly timed inputs and prevents interruptions between animations.