Game project 1 - Autumn 2019
Project details
Platform: Genre:
Engine:
Development time:
PC
Local multiplayer
Unreal Engine
2 weeks
Washed-up is a physics based local multiplayer party game where you take control of an employee trying to save as many plates as possible before the time runs out, but the competition is high and there can only be one employee-of-the-month so sabotage might be the only solution.
Responsibilities
Game design
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Game core
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Character
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Physics
Sound design
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Audio scripting
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Audio mixing
Design pillars
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Friendly couch rivalry
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Fun/Wacky
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Easy to learn
Game core
My goals
Wacky, Easily read, Competitive
To build towards our design pillars the core gameplay had to be tightly knit around these which lead to these goals.
Wacky
exaggerated physics
lots happening
breakable objects
Easily read
Everyone on screen
Easy to read character direction
Competitive
Visible score
Clear goal
Destroy for other players
Game loop
Turn in plates to gain score
Sabotage your co-workers
Save plates
Player goal
The goal of the game is to get as many plates saved during the time limit as well as making sure other players don't get more than you.
Risk/reward dilemma
This leads to a dilemma where the player will either want to play it safe and turn in their plates or continue to collect plates with the risk of being sabotaged by someone else. This leads to a more competitive game further enhancing the goal with the game core.
?
Turn in plates
Player
Gather more plates
Character design
Intuitive
Simple controls
2D-Movement
Few interactions
Fun
Acceleration based movement
Balance plates
My goals
Intuitive, Fun
To further enhance the design pillars, intuitive easy controls were important while making them have a slight acceleration to ensure the player didn't have full control of the character, producing funny results.
Movement
To ensure that the player can easily understand how the movement works, the movement is based relative to the world and camera direction instead of the characters direction.
Acceleration
To make the movement more fun there was acceleration to the movement to make sure that the player would not have full control of the character at all times leading to the irony of the players ruining the restaurant while trying to save plates.
Slow start
Fast top speed
Rotation
Like the movement, the rotation is related to the world position rather than relative to the character ensuring that the player will always know which way they will look at based on their rotation.
Along with this the rotation axis is based in between the character and the tray at which they hold the plates for a more understandable rotation since the player will mostly relate towards the tray rather than the player-character.
Sabotage
To further enhance the intuitive experience a designated "Attack" sabotage button was removed to instead always be a spherical hitbox in front of the character, allowing them to simply control the movement and run into players in order to sabotage them.
Sabotage hitbox
Physics design
My goals
Unpredictable, exaggerated
While the physics was one of our constraints in Game project 1 it had to do hold the plates in place while also being over-the-top to create fun situations.
Unpredictable
Stacking plates in weird ways
Exaggerated
Plates crashing everywhere
Physics design process
The initial thought when designing the system was to have the plates stack, creating big piles of plates, this would make the game more readable and visual.
While this was the ideal solution to the game, due to time restrictions I had to settle on the simpler system where the plates would rely on a magnetism between themselves and the tray the player carries them in.
Ideal result
Plates stacking creating piles the player needs to balance
Final result
Plates, with help from magnetism pulls them towards each other creating stacks along the tray.
Sound design
My goals
Distinction, Satisfying
With lots happening on screen I wanted the sounds to have distinction and be gratifying
Easy to identify
Sounds with distinction
Satisfying
Easy to listen to sounds
Sound design
The sounds I chose were taken from free sound sources and manipulated to fit the game. My main focus regarding these were to make them pleasant to listen to as well as be gratifying to the player.
I wanted sounds with distinction to get the player grounded in what is happening in the already chaotic gameplay which is why there were lots of feedback sounds based on what the player did.
The implementation was to play sounds based collisions through scripts.
Sounds
Plate breaking
Plate turn-in
Plate pick-up
Sabotage