Creatures of Legend: Post Mortem
I was the lead level designer, and UI developer on this project. I also implemented a few animations and player controls into the game. This game was the first project outside of college, in which I had to work with other designers through a source control program. That presented a few challenges all on it's own. However, as far as working with a team to develop part or a game, then watch it come together in the end into a cleanly polished game, was amazing!
What Went Right?
Character Selection
From the very beginning we knew that we wanted to be able to choose between a boy or girl character. This could have easily been done with a widget, and couple of buttons at the start of the game. However, I didn't want it to be that simple. So I made a new level, and decorated it similar to the rest of the game, and put our hero front and center in an idle pose different than what is used during normal gameplay. Then I allowed the choice to be made; boy or girl?
Home Farm
We also new we wanted an area that the player could call home. Their "farm" for all the creatures. So we made a separate island, connected with a ramp, and placed the player's "home" and all the corrals there.
Gameplay Info
Due to the time constraint that that the game jam put on us, we had to figure out a quick and easy way to provide the necessary information for our game. We originally had this all on a widget that was attached to a sign that the player would have to interact with. Then we quickly realized that most players would just bypass the sign. So put it in their face when they start the game! We also put it on a sign, that they could interact with, but only if they choose to.
Phoenix Biome
We wanted to try to have a separate biome for each creature, but time was not on our side with that dream. So we settled with only one different biome. The one that made more sense; the Phoenix. By utilizing a post processing volume, and some particles, I was able to achieve an sort of volcanic rocky area that would make sense for the Phoenix to live.
What Went Wrong?
Down and Dirty
The final couple of days, we realized that we never told the player exactly how each creature should be captured. We were out of time, and this was some important information that the player needed, or they would be lost. So, we just placed a new sign in the stating area, and added an interaction to it with all the info for capturing creatures on a widget.
Outfit Options
Along with the selection of which character to play as, we also had about 3 to 4 different outfits for each character. I had added a clothing color selection for it, but then couldn't get it to work properly. Since this was 100% necessary to gameplay, we ended up cutting this feature from the game. However, this is definitely something that I want to revisit and try to figure out where I went wrong.
AI Creatures
While the AI for the creatures was not an area that I worked in at all on this project, I was tasked with figuring out a way to communicate to the player how they should capture the creatures that use bait. This was a bit challenging at first, but once we decided to attach them to a bait stick, I just added a proximity widget that would give the info when they got close.
Conclusion
This project was definitely a learning experience for me. I had to dive deeper into the development side of game design than I ever had before. I learned a lot about UI with this project also, and I feel like this could be an area that I could pursue further in future projects. Overall, the team environment, and the use of source control to share parts of the project, made this project a very rewarding, and enjoyable experience. I am very proud of what we were able to accomplish in such a short time.