Planning and Concept creation
My aim was to create a vertical slice of my game with at least 2 levels and the base mechanics that would be present.
This game is to be a pervasive experience via the use of competitive designs from arcade style games using rogue lite elements.
The competitive are aspect will come from the ability of player to perform well in various aspects of the game & create dichotomies that will force the player to make decisions depending on their current situation, this includes
Fighting ability
Health system
Collectables acquired
Time taken
My aim is for all these aspects is to create a series of mechanics that are all connected to emphasize the impact of choices an create a dichotomy within players, as any choice will have consequences on their performance in any of the previous aspects.
For the map I main to create levels that feel connected but clearly distinct from one another, I also would like to make levels that are procedural, so they feel unique each time the game is played.
Production
In this project I would be filling many roles, I found myself quickly becoming too overwhelmed with all the different works that I will have to do, especially ones I had no experience in, still I decided to ask for help from students and tutors from other courses such as animation and games art to help me with the sprite work and other categories, as my aim was to create at least two levels to display the 2 different types of levels that there can be I believe that I should be capable of achieving.
During pre-production I created small prototypes of the various mechanics and tried to weave them together best I could and seeing how these could be improved and change to better fit gameplay experience I was aiming for.
During production I did have to cut and various mechanics that would not be possible to be fully implemented in the game due to time constraints and having to prioritize other parts of the project.
For level prototyping, I realised that procedural generation of levels would be not be feasible for the time I had so I decided to instead create a system here levels are made up of sections that have different versions of each of them, when the level starts, these sections are randomly chosen to create the feeling of randomness but making the experience of each level section to still be tailor made.
During production I did encounter a major issue that cause me to have to redo some sections that were already made as they had incorrect measurements that made the levels either have no difficulty or not possible to progress, this took critical time hat could have been better used, I also added a very needed mechanic for better platforming to allow players to get on top of platforms from bellow, this helped to make the platforming feel smoother and more fare.
When creating the art for the game I decided to make it pixel art as I had done some pixel art in the past, I did struggle with making animations and in the end, I chose to make the playable character have animations and one enemy.
Blueprints and Code
Final Thoughts
I was able to create the most basic of mechanics & level layouts, however the presentation the areas that were created was not up the desired standard due to lack of time, personal practice.
However, I am pleased with the mechanics that are present in the game and how they are tied together on how they affect each other.
The system for randomly chosen sections for the levels also works well and helps to add to the experience when replaying the levels.
Visually it does show that I am not specialised in creating games assets, but with my basic knowledge in fine art I was able to create basic environment rudimentary animations.
Overall, I am pleased with what is currently present in this project as a solo project.