[Assignment 2- Adventure Game]: Shattered——Devlog

Assignment 2- Adventure Game Shattered Devlog 

I.  Game Development Process: 

[Week 1] 

1st Meeting & Brainstorming: 

We had a huge brainstorm at the first meeting. We discussed what features and elements that we want to put in the game, and finalized what the game should be like really quickly. 

Inspired by a youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAJetNyjmv8) as well as Fallguys, the scene we design consists of a number of layers of platform composed of blocks of glass and traps. The traps are invisible, so when the players move to another block, it is possible that the glass will break or they will remain safe on it. The traps will only be visible when the button is pressed, and to make the game more difficult, the number of times a player can activate the button is limited, which means players need to try their best to memorize the position of traps and safe blocks to win the game. The number of times to use the button can be replenished by collecting the key on the platform. There will also be coins on many blocks waiting to be collected. Moreover, enemies will be present at each level to disturb players and push them off the platform. To win the game, players need to collect the required amount of coin and making any kinds of mistakes like stepping on a trap or falling from the last layer will result in the failure of the game.  

(the designed layout is similar to Fallguys)

We choose GitHub to be the cooperation platform and come up with a TODO list to make sure works will be done methodically. Here is the list: 

• UIs and Canvas 
• the Button
• glass, breakable glass, traps
• prefabs 
• the player
• enemy
• scripts 
• sounds and bgm
• start, pause, win, lose menus

Demo & Prototypes Building : 

The Demo we designed for the playtest reflected our basic game mechanism.  Several blacks were included, safe glass blocks and breakable glass blocks. A button was also created and when triggered, it switch the breakable glass blocks to a brighter color to highlight them so players can know which one is a trap and which one is safe. The player and enemy, as well as their animations, were created using Unity standard assets. A simple script was added to the two enemies to follow the players and jam them. Lots of valuable ideas and advice were gained after we share our designs with our professor and other groups, here is a list we made: 

Professor:

• Enemies pushing players
• Keys to unlock the button
• Random the tiles
• Some tiles random
• Lighter or heavier: Lighter will be easier to be pushed by the enemies, eat food to gain weight, and run to consume calories

Group1: 

• Questions: 
  • Can you leave the button on? Or do you have to stand on it the entire time?
  • Can we see more of the tiles?
  • Is it telling a story?
• Suggestions: Make the tiles multi-color: unclear color and coins?

Group 2: 

• Suggestions: Add more mechanisms to the game: picture matching, for example.

Group 4: 

• Suggestions:
  • When break glasses respawn the player
  • Not show all the breakable glasses for the lower level
  • Make the glass less transparent/change the camera angle to better show the levels

Group 5: 

• Questions: How do we determine if the player wins a level since they will be going down anyway?
• Suggestions: Button disappear at a lower level to make the game more difficult

Group 6:

• Questions:
  • Is it just going to the player or there will be enemies?
  • Are there different sections of the game or there’s only one level? 

Group 7:

• Questions:
  • Can you go back to the previous level?
  • Can you see the coins without standing on the button?
• Suggestions:
  • Don’t make the button be available all the time or it will be too easy for the player.

After the playtest, we went over all the feedback we got, made a few changes to our strategies and design, and came up with a new plan for the following week. 

[Week 2]

Completing & Refining  The Game 

During this week our team worked on completing our functionalities and refining scenes and assets. We added Starting Menu, Instruction Menu, and Death Menu, with a costumed font. The starter menu allows players to enter the game or read the small hints in the instruction menu. 

In the game scene, we add UIs on the upper left corner that records the number of coins and keys the player collected. The number in brackets shows the number of coins needed to be collected to win the game. One key is used each time the button is pressed to reveal the positions of all the traps. Players need to try their best to memorize the position of traps (breakable glass) while collecting coins to avoid failure. Sound effects were added, including the coin & key pick-up sound, glass-breaking sound, and bgm. 

Collect 10 coins to win the game!!!

Press the button, all the traps will be revealed, but remember you can only use this function with limited time, save your keys wisely. 

Oops!!! you step on a breakable glass... 

Moreover, in total 3 layers of platforms are designed, so you won't die directly if you step on a trap once, you will still have two more chances to complete the game. However, if you fall from the last layer or the purple one at the very bottom, you will lose the game definitely. Three scenes are designed using different  colors and themes, aiming to create a more and more dangerous atmosphere 

Level 1

Level 2

Level3

Last but not least, a marvelous part of our design is that we create a random generation script for traps and safe glass and apply them to all three layers. As a  result, all the blocks in each platform will be randomly generated at the start of each game. Players can enjoy an entirely different game each time they fail and cheating will be impossible, haha. 

Winning page, hope you can see this