Design Documentation

Jackson, Mariana, Heidi and Emily

Core Studio: Environments

May 5, 2021

Project 4 Geo Gravity

Introduction

In a universe where animals are geometric forms and the laws of gravity do not behave normally, Geo is a cube puppy that got lost and is now trying to make its way back home. He will have to go through different worlds and face new creatures to be able to do so.

The main mechanics of the game is that the player is able to switch their point of gravity while playing to facilitate floating through the air. Each one of the animals is put in a situation where you wouldn’t normally find them in real life. In addition to that, they each have a very specific set of skills that affect the way the player interacts with them.

Our team roles were:

• Mariana: concept art, built 3D models, UI design and cut scenes.
• Jackson: coding, UI programming, penguin animations
• Heidi: world build (whale level), background music, sound effects, whale animations
• Emily: world build (turtle level, penguins level, 3 animals level), turtle animations, create trailer
• Apart from our main roles, we all had interchangeable duties and contributions such as general building in Unity, animations and coding.

What went right (5 things)

Teamwork

Overall, we had a cohesive plan throughout the game making process by using miro as a tool to organize and outline the project with dates and tasks assigned to each individual member that coordinated with their assigned roles specifically. There is a clear division of roles and an effective communication between teammates. Oftentimes, we helped each other with tasks assigned. We made sure everyone is on the same page by texting in discord to notify teammates that someone is working on the project and remind each other to pull before working on the project overall. We also had meetings at least twice a week and called daily on discord.

Storyline

Our storyline was simple, but enough to give the player short and long term goals. Each cutscene transition added context to the level the player was about to walk into. By also having characters with names and personalities the player becomes more invested in the story and helping Geo throughout the space.

Assets

The visual identity was clear, which helped create cohesive world design. By making original 3D assets, we were able to achieve characters and environments that complemented each other and felt like they belong in the same universe. Besides visuals, the animal assets were essential for the level designs, as the shape of each animal determined how the player would interact with the mechanics. The cloud assets also helped the game as it taught the player that if they were to be touched, they would be resetted from the beginning. The cloud assets also created a border that helped the players prevent from going to the other side. 

Systems

We were able to create systems that relied on and contributed to the world space through interesting and challenging gameplay. Gravity switching was the initial mechanic we set out to use, and were able to implement it quickly. The loss/level system is the second largest in the game, which handles the detection logic for the cloud and where the player goes when they fail a level. These systems all functioned well in the final version of the game.

Gaminess

During our Parsons program, we have mostly worked in games that were more focused on translating an experience or exploring a space, primarily working with walking simulators. This was one of the first projects we were able to explore a more “gamey” style. We were successful in creating a platformer game that contained separate  levels that increased in difficulty and had complex mechanics.

What went wrong (5 things) 

UI Trouble

The invoke key for the slideshows is currently the same key to switch gravity in world space. The UI elements are quite jarring when they come up, and we rely on the player to fail the level in order to reorient them with the spawn platform. We considered implementing a system that would either lock player controls or freeze the player while a cutscene was running but couldn’t figure out the logic in time. 

Audio/Sound Effect

Audio was scarce due to it being an afterthought. Because we focused a lot on the mechanics and the visuals of the game (like making sure the colliders and the platforms were on the right x axis), we couldn’t focus a lot on the audio portion. Though there were a few audio effects that were collected, we couldn’t implement them into the game itself. We decided to add the system too late and for this reason we’re not able to design around it. For the final project we added a simple background soundtrack which looped through the game.

Github 

We encountered a challenge two days prior to our final deadline where changes and updates made throughout the weekend were missing in unity due to conflicts in committing the changes to the main GitHub. We spend multiple hours trying to figure out what and how it happened and how to solve the problem. We were eventually able to find out how to download a rebase from GitHub before the conflict existed. Even though we were able to restore the work done during the weekend, the time spent was definitely missed from the process.

Colliders in level

There are problems with platform colliders, which become more agravant in the penguin level and the final level. Penguin platforms and clouds were not aligned properly. Because we were building a 2D mechanic on a 3D space, positioning can be a little hassle. Properly aligning everything in the correct position was extremely challenging,  particularly because we had problems with the teleporters of the player aligning with the x axis of the levels and animal platforms. If not placed in the correct position, the player (aka the puppy character) would totally end up missing the animal platforms and would zip through the whole game or float away from the actual game screen. 

Level polish/Animal platform animation

For the last level we wanted to add animations to the animals that would be the same as the animation when the character was introduced to the platform. However, due to time constraint we weren’t able to get all the platforms in the last level animated correctly (mostly due to issues with the axis the player resides on, and spent more time moving them around trying to get the player to collide than animating.) The level design for the tutorial portion of the game is also not ideal, since it straight away puts the player on a spot where they have to understand all mechanics at once.

What you learned

This is one of our first times creating a game that relies more on the actual mechanics than the over aesthetics and visuals. Projects in the past are mostly walking simulators that focus on the world building environment that players can explore the space rather than playing the game. Midway into our project, we had a problem with Github where it deleted all of our work. It was an effective experience to successfully overcome technical challenges in GitHub towards the end of the project, because we learned something new that we can apply in the future projects when we run into the same issue. If we had more time, we would try to polish level design, audio design and maybe create a health system in the game. For level design, there is still room for improvement to make the levels even easier at the beginning and gradually increase the difficulty. For audio design, we will find a better solution to fix the  mechanics and add sound effects to the objects so it is more interactive and fun for the player to experience.