A SLIME JOURNEY

INTENT

I created this game in the span of a week for a final project. The game was built on the prompt of a puzzle game that was at first a board game. It went through many iterations that eventually led to its final product. This summary will go over my design process as I worked through turning this into a computer game.

VDD

This is the first VDD I created that covers the entire concept of the game and how the mechanics would function. This version implements new mechanics that the board game did not have. I needed to remember the time frame I had to complete this project so I chose to keep things relatively simple.

RESEARCH

I chose to work in Unreal because it was the engine I had the most experience with, but developing a 2D project was difficult. Since Unreal Engine is primarily designed for 3D games, the 2D features were lackluster. With the scope of the project, what I had to work with was enough for a proof of concept. Thankfully, there's a good handful of resources that cover the 2D systems inside of Unreal.

The primary mechanic of the game involved the player character shrinking in size and leaving slime behind. The main Idea I had was that this slime would injure enemies and be more crucial to the gameplay. 

Unfortunately, I had to make the tough call not to include enemies because I was spending too much time trying to make it work. In the end, it still had a minor use for maneuvering small spaces. The game shifted to be more focused on Level Design.

This shift into Level Design was very good for me. At the time I had not figured out that I wanted to specialize in this field. This project helped me realize that I really enjoyed the process of creating game spaces.

My favorite part of the process was balancing the game progression. Each level focuses on reusing and innovating on the already existing mechanics to ensure it's not unfair. The final world is a perfect example of this put into play. The examples above are of the final level. It is a culmination of everything the game previously introduced. I really had fun with this level and designed it to give the players a nice final challenge. 

Postmortem 

What Worked

The levels I created worked very well with the mechanics in place. I am satisfied with how they turned out in the span of one week. There's a fun challenge to be had with how the player progresses. 

What Didn't Work

Without the Inclusion of enemies, the levels definitely turned out a lot differently than how they might have been with them. 

Conclusion

The work I did on this project was a definite step towards my goal as a designer. Getting to keep this project in such a small scope allowed me to quickly implement all of the mechanics. This allowed a lot of time to be focused on how the levels were designed. 

Game Story: A Slime Journey follows the story of an unlucky adventurer who delves deep into a dungeon while searching for treasure. After a long and tiresome journey, this adventurer finds the treasure room and comes across an artifact of great proportions. Upon coming in contact with the artifact, the Adventurer is suddenly turned into a slime! As well as this, the gears and mechanisms twist and turn, resetting the dungeon to its original state! Now in this new form, the adventurer must use their newfound abilities in order to make their way out of this dangerous dungeon.

Credits:

Dungeon Tile Set - Michele Bucelli - https://opengameart.org/users/buch

Dungeon Tile Set Sponsor - Abram Conelly

Game Music From 3D Dot Game Heroes!