Working with Engines: Unity

I haven't posted much by ways of individual work yet, so here's bit I've done in Unity. The Brief: Make a little 2D puzzle game to demonstrate knowledge of Playmaker and Unity. When coming up with a quick puzzle idea, this came to mind:

A simple toy maze which you tilt to roll the ball about. I decided this would be the basis for my puzzle and quickly set up some props in Unity. I called the game 'Cheese Run', with the logic that the ball is a piece of cheese that you navigate through objects to a mouse hole.

After popping some colliders on each of the objects and tweaking their physics properties I created a few simple levels. I made the materials bouncy for added difficulty of controlling the ball. 

Setting up the tilting function of the board was straightforward. Here's how I configured them in PlayMaker:

Click to Enlarge! 

Last but not least, I added a nice surprise to the win condition rather than just a "Well Done." 

Ta-Da! A mouse appears on screen, soon to be with an added thank-you squeak sound effect.

Presenting a Concept

After our practice with the board and fairy tail games our next group project was to last us till the end of the year; our task was to create a 2D game from start to finish. Our team, dubbed 'Insomiacs', came up with a concept that took inspiration from Japanese wood block prints. Here are some examples of images we were looking at whilst coming up with some ideas:

We established quickly that we didn't want to make a side-scrolling plat former and so an idea was formed that you would jump INTO the picture. The player solves mini-games on each layer to unlock the next; battling against a time limit to move further into the lovely print style backgrounds. Put simply, you are a Frog aiming for the Palace pond in the distance. Here are some slides from our presentation to industry. (It was like a Dragon's Den scenario.)

Adding a texture to the layer the player is currently playing on allows for easy recognition of what they can jump on /attack etc. 

We invested in a Frog suit for Andy and made him our mascot and logo. +10 Try hard points awarded. Got a 1st, worth.

Stay classy.

Character Design Week

Another 2D technical art brief, we dipped in on character design and how to portray what kind of person someone is/what they do etc. I was given 'Abertoir worker'. You'll see my concept sketches below (6/10 I know) and you'll see me developing the kind of character I wanted to portray by the end of it. He's supposed to be a guy who despite killing animals, feels every cut. Deep.

Vectors

We have a module dedicated to teaching us a range of different software in preparation for conveying our game ideas. Since many 2D games are created using vectors to save space, we were shown the basics of Photoshop's vector tools. Here is a piece I made after being given the title "Blinkies Balloon Race"

I've used photoshop a lot before but never really dabbled with the vector tools, s'alright like.

(Project 2) Our Own Board

This time round we were given far more time to create a board game of our own. Instead of being given a video game with pre-existing rules to take from, we were given a fairy tale. Ours was Goldilocks.

Our game orientated around the story of Goldilocks, focusing on the chase for her. You play as one of the three bears, starting on the house board. You make your way around that house board, picking up cards corresponding to space colours that will aid your chase of Goldilocks. On the Garden board you race your friends (and a timer) to catch Goldilocks first!

Here are some examples of assets we created. 

 Cards

 Ruleset (Page 1)

 Garden board (Left half)

 Garden Board (Right Half)

House Board

Board Game Design

Our first project of the year was based on teaching us fundamentals. Starting with board games gave us a taste of what it is to concept, design, change, test and create a working game. It confirmed for me that I'd taken the right course - it was an eye-opener to what my role as a designer entails.

The gist is you're given an old arcade game (in our case, Scramble) and then you make a board game out of it. Here are some example of board designs, rule sets and model-making our team came up with.

Working in a team was a pleasure and I hope it's something this course keeps going throughout the massive changes it'll likely go through what with it being so new. Some are bound to think it's a pain in the ass but my god is it an opportunity and a half.

also yeah I just clocked the spelling mistake "too" on the last rule, kill me now.