Game Designer | Level Designer
My Socials:
Cleanup Catastrophe
Idea
My role in this project is the lead level designer and in-charge of the UI. When discussing game ideas, we had to between 4 ideas. After discussing it over discord, we all agreed that the idea of being a cleaning cockroach is going against the standard stereotype of them being dirty.
At first, we wanted to go for an arcade-style game where there are time limits and a stage level where the player has to clean up the area before they're able to process with the level. However, we all agreed that the cockroach idea was nice, but the game idea wasn't solid enough and so we approach a lecture with more experience to get his opinions and he suggested that merging our game idea of a space pirate invading the ship and a cockroach janitor would be interesting.
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As for the art of the game, we went with a simple look as we do not have an artist on the team so one of the designers takes over that role. Referencing platforms like Megaman X and art style like Battle Cat.
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Process
Before we start designing, we start working on a flowchart that layout the features of the player, menu, and the animation
Features
Vacuum:
When prototyping, we tried to use a mouse direction to control where the vacuum faces and where it will blow or suck the objects around the player, but we had to scrap it as it was taking to long and it's an important feature so we went with the basic left and right direction for the 2D platform.
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Enemy:
During development after the vacuum was complete, I was tasked to make a prototype of what the enemies' behavior would be like. It took me a long time to code the patrolling function and the chase function as it clashed at first but eventually I got it working for the Technical side to view it and work on the custom engine.
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Traps:
While the design side is waiting for the engine, we continue to prototype more ideas into the game such as a hydraulic press trap to showcase the player's indestructibility as a cockroach and as a means to defeat the enemies.
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Level Design:
When designing the first level of the game, we did a few playtest to get feedback on the level and players mentioned how playing as a cockroach and how fast the crawl was really fun but the introduction of the level is too sudden with no preparation for the player, so I redesign the level to where the player could get a preview of what's to come later in the game.
Prototyping
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Playtest
Level design
Adding SFX into Prototype and Animatic
While prototyping the game, I was in charge of looking for some sound effects for the game to add to the experience of the game.
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While I was looking for it, I helped by adding some sound effects into the animatic as well as it is the opening to the game and the ending scene of the first level.
Gameplay Video
Coming to the end of our final project presentation, we put in all our efforts to our gameplay completion from start to finish
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We may have some conflicts in between but we got together to discuss our plans and what we could do to finish what we started and push to the end.
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My role at this stage was to test gameplay, have an opening and ending sample scene ready to be placed in the game, and create the presentation to be shown.