Technical Info:
Role: - Narrative, Puzzle, Level & Sound Design.
What: - Game Project 2 - Future Games.
Project Brief: - Symbiosis (co-op 2 player game).
Time Period: - 4 Week Project.
Team: - 4 Game Designers (with myself), 2 Programmers & 3 Artists.
Engine: - Unity 3D.
Version Control: - GitHub
When: - January - February 2023.
Game Synopsis (as shown on itch.io):
"A year ago, Harriet’s twin brother Gary died in a horrific accident at their grandparents’ house. After that incident, the family could no longer bear to spend any time in that house choosing to leave it abandoned.
On the lead up to the first anniversary of Gary’s death, Harriet has been visited by him in her dreams. He has been calling to her, night after night, urging her to come back to the house where he died. After realizing this was more than a dream, she began researching the occult in hopes of bringing her brother back to life.
On the day of Gary’s death-iversary, Harriet returns to the house. The ghostly visage of her brother greets her and together they uncover hidden items in the house to complete a ritual which might bring Gary back to life…"
Possess items as Ghostly Gary and touch things with your human hands as Harriet. Experience the highs and lows of sibling love.
Re-Alving of the Un-Alive is a humorous two player co-op puzzle adventure game designed for younger teens and families. Inspired by the classic puzzle adventure game Resident Evil (1998) & the classic Scooby Doo cartoon.
My Role:
I drew sketches, flow charts, and story boards to describe the story and puzzles. I designed the levels on paper before handing them over to Level Design to be made inside of Unity.
I wrote the dialogue lines and Quest Log for ‘in game information.’ As part of this, I also recorded and edited the Dialogue lines, editing them with SFX for the Sound Design. All these files I edited in 'Audacity'.
I worked with the group to finalize camera angles to be able to highlight the puzzles. I communicated constantly with our Artists, to get the right atmosphere and correct items fitting with the theme of the game. With the Programmers, I made sure to give them the information they would need to make the puzzles as designed, with specific programming flowcharts.
The below plans were written up on our 'Miro' board, with hand drawn level/puzzle sketches that I scanned and uploaded.
Mechanics:
An example Gif of the Co-op mechanic of the Ghost character possessing an item to 'wiggle' it, and the Human character using normal force.
In game, there are different Co-op interactions along with different QTE prompts to keep the game-play fresh for the player.
Diagrams:
We had planned for the final puzzle to be the hardest and most complicated puzzle in the game. New mechanics were going to be introduced with more co-op variation. However due to time constraints and bug fixes; the final puzzle had to be drastically scaled down to make sure we had a finished game by the deadline.
Below are the before and after puzzle plans I came up with.
UI Example:
Gif of a riddle added to the game, and how we showed it visually with some UI.
Additives:
Due to the over scoping, the game felt empty, and we wanted there to be more interactable sections for the ghost player. While we re-scoped the project, I came up with some simple additions we could make to the game to make it more fun.
While planning these, I kept in mind the absolute minimum amount of work for each department. e.g. re-using art assets, keeping the programming simple etc.
Unfortunately due to bug fixes, we were also unable to add these into the finished game.
Storyboards:
For the intro and outro comic strip, I made a rough edit of what I wanted it to look like. I then gave this to one of our artists who re-drew the images to a higher standard.
I recorded the voice lines to go with the images as a comic strip, they were then edited together and added to the game.
Opening Cut-scene:
Gif of part of the finished opening storyboard that plays before the game starts.
What I learned from this project:
In this project I learned the real impact of over-scoping. This project was only 4 weeks, even knowing this we over-scoped. As a group we worked on a week by week basis, keeping department and individual tasks on a 'Jira' board. We were able to complete our tasks on time, however, due to polishing and bug fixing we didn't have as much time to implement new features as we had liked. As such there were multiple puzzles and scenes we had to cut from the final project. Even with this I was able to keep the main story in tact and understandable, and edit the puzzle designs in a way that was achievable for all departments.
Overall I am very happy with what my team and I were able to make within the short time we had. There are things I would love to change or amend, but realistically for our second game project, this is an amazing team effort that we are all proud of.
Trailer for the Game Project:
To fit with the main theme of our game, there is a heavy comedy influence, while still showing off the core features of the game. I created this trailer in 'DaVinchi Resolve'.
