Game Designer | Level Designer
My Socials:
My Role & Idea
My role in this project is both a co-producer and in-charge of the narrative. When discussing game ideas, we had to between 3 ideas. After discussing it over discord we the team on the mechanic and story theme, we all agreed that the idea of being a an anti-virus that is tasked to protect the hardware and ruin the motherboard of virus infection.
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At first, we didn't have a clear idea on how the game will progress, changing our ideas repeatedly until we came to a common agreement of the narrative. However, we all agreed the anti-virus idea is nice, but the game idea wasn't solid enough and so we played with a few ideas using games we have played before and we came up with the idea that by collecting data, we can get through the level using puzzle as the main pillar around our planning.
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As for the art of the game, we went with a simple look as the setting is located in a cyber world, Voxel modeling is what we go to to get the pixel aspect but keeping the 3D. This also future proof ourselves where anyone can pick up and help out with assets. Referencing games like Spiral Knights, and pacman. Art style similar to Heart & Slash with common colour palette theme.
Process
Features
&
Conception
Before we start designing, we start working on a flowchart that layout the features of the player, menu, the animation, by referencing our prototype gameplay idea.
Prototyping
&
Playtest
Wall Walk:
When prototyping, we use a mouse to control the direction of the camera which will dictate where the player's forward would be, given that our main idea was for the player to be able to walk up specific walls to get to different layers.
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DATAs:
Once the main mechanic is done, we move on to working on the player being able to pick up DATAs across the level and sort them via a menu for Locked Gates before the player could progress. This was my task and it took a while to understand the logic behind it, but with some understanding of how the final gate's function would be, it became easier to script the code.
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Viruses:
During development after the DATA and Wall Walk was complete, the designers spend a few moments to ensure that both he and I were on the same page about how we imagined the Viruses would work. Communicating how the logic works and the "what ifs" if we were to encounter something we did not intend. We finalize the viruses to only corrupt the first DATA that the player has and goes down the list from there on.
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Level Design:
When designing the levels of the game for a prototype, each designer created a level using the features we had agreed on and put it into the game.
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BIN:
A standalone platform that works as a safe area for the player to get a checkpoint and restore their DATA corruption.
Prototype
Prototype
While prototyping the game, I was tasked to create a prototype level to test our features and each of our levels into Unity for playtesting. Additionally. 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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We did a few playtest to get feedback on the level, and players mentioned how the camera turns were sudden and it could give them moment sickness over time, so we redesign the level to have an invisible rounded edge to give the player an illusion of a smooth transition from the ground to the wall.
3D Model
& Colours
Once we knew this is what we wanted for our game features, I worked on the 3D models such as improving them from our prototype or creating new models that are important.
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We scrapped the idea of wanting to have a mix of Low Poly models and Voxel models to have the player stand out from the rest. Having Voxel makes it easier for our technical team to chip in with additional models due to how simple the software is.
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There were moments due to voxel's software, we had to make some compromises to the concept design for the look of the characters and enemies.
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Level Design change
Old Level
New Level
During our game progress, we found decided to scrap the ability to wall walk from our custom engine, due to it taking too much time to implement. We rework the gameplay to a flat ground level.
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We spend a few days to rework our old levels and figuring out new features for the gameplay, such as Teleporter, Alternating Tiles and DATA bridges.
New Features
implementation
With new features being planned and prototyped into Unity, we tried as best as we could implement it into our custom engine. I discuss with another designer as we try having work around the codes and taking suggestion from the technical team whenever there were some issue we could not add in such as a delay between teleportation.
Unity
Custom Engine
Finalising the
game
After we implemented all the features and ensuring it works as intended, each of us tried playing the game once before letting our friends and family to playtest them. Making asset changes, keyboard/controller inputs, and how the over game feel and looks.
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Pushing as much as we could before the final presentation with a working game that we would be proud to call it our game.