Game Design

The brief was simple, yet broad, so we decided on some constraints to provide a sense of direction when conceptualizing ideas. The first was that we needed a simple mechanic that could be used in multiple ways, to provide dynamic gameplay. The second constraint, that follows that, is that the mechanic(s) are easy to learn but hard to master. One idea that came from these constraints was a 2D platformer game, where the player would not only move a character from A→ B, but also control a light source that would cast shadows, that the character could walk on. The initial idea for such game is the drawing on the right. The unique element of creating your own platforms would help to make interesting challenges. This simple principle could be used to create other mechanics, such as blocking enemy projectiles with the shadow/light, adding additional light sources that were fixed in position, so they had to be blocked with other objects, and even mirrors that can reflect a light source ...

Before theory crafting a puzzle game we set ourself a goal that we wanted to create a unique pair of mechanics that would be really easy to pick up and understand but when implemented in a puzzle there would be a large amount of possibility to catch the players our and make them rethink how they should be using the mechanics to push the player to think laterally, this want to create simple yet complex systems has been heavily inspired by the game snake bird ...

For the action game we wanted to create a game that was heavily focused on the combat where the player would have a choice of 3 weapon styles “support” “medium” & “heavy” -SUPPORT- Weapon : whip Attack A : throw out a whip attack in font of the player if it hits an enemy It will bring the enemy towards the player ß and stun them for a short time when the attack is over if it hits a railing the player will move towards the railing. Attack B : throw out a whip attack upwards and to the side of the player if it hits an enemy the enemy will be stunned for a decent amount of time if it hits a railing the player will move towards the railing -MEDIUM- Weapon : long sword Attack A : lunge your sword forwards + move the player forwards if it hits an enemy it will do some damage to the enemy if it hits the environment sword will “clang” against the wall Attack B : Lunge your sword into the air + moving the player upwards if it hits an enemy it will knock the enemy upwards and stun them for a short amount of time in the air if it hits the environment it will clang and knock the player in the opposite horizontal direction that they were traveling -HEAVY- Weapon : War hammer Attack A : Swing the hammer horizontally if it hits an enemy it will knock back small enemies it will stun larger enemies if it hits the environment it will get stuck briefly in indestructible objects it will destroy destructible objects Attack B : Swing the hammer downwards if it hits an enemy it will squash a small enemy it will knock a large enemy to the ground if it hits the environment it will get stuck for a reasonable amount of time in indestructible objects it will destroy destructible objects Combining attacks : the game would be designed to combine attacks together to defeat enemies more efficiently and would be required for certain puzzles as these attacks affect the players movement

After receiving the brief for the collaboration project that contained the constraints that we would be following for this project, we decided that it would be a good idea to produce a decent selection of game concepts, from this we would be able to narrow down what style of game that we would be interested in producing for the project. we brainstormed out a large amount of mechanics that we thought would be interesting from this we ended up with a decent list of mechanics so we narrowed down the list to 4 and created a developed the core gameplay and trimmed anything that we felt was unnecessary. ...

As this is our first medium - long term project working together, we decided we needed to organise our work as well as possible, so we didn’t waste time trying to find the correct files, combining projects, and working out who needed to do what. Because of this, we decided to set up a GitHub repository, which Kingsley was already familiar with the process, so we could get to work straight away. We started with a base project in the Master branch, which had a testing scene, a game manager script, and a few placeholder assets. From here we created our own personal branches: One for creating the time changing script, and one for the freeze gun script. As we would be using the same scene without modifying too much, and be working on totally separate scripts, a merge later down the line would not be too difficult. ...