Watch the trailer!
What did I do for this project?
Let us delve into the deepest depths of creation together and figure out what it was that I did.
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Because I am writing this at least half a year after the creation of this project.
Exam redirection & Game design
SpaceMan was our exam project and we had certain criteria to meet as we were to fit the requests of a "client"
The client wanted us to make a dogfighting game in space that would feature scanning and fighting space battles as the main focus.
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However this information was only given us a week into development and we had already started on a game concept that much better suited our skills. We only knew we had to make a shooter game set in space. So I came with the idea for a Doom-esque shooter with satisfying mechanics and neat scale-able leves. Then together we iterated on that concept and made a bunch of fun ideas around that.
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So before we could start work on this game I had to convince our client that we would not be able to fulfill the dogfighting part of the project, but we could certainly work shooting mechanics and scanning into the game.
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He gave us the go ahead and that's how SpaceMan came to be.
I happily continued work on the GDD to lay out all the fundamental elements of the game, making sure that the scanning and fighting where it's strongest parts because we really wanted to show our client that allowing us to take it in this direction was the best choice.
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I came up with the setting, story, characters and various mechanics of the game. The look of the spaceship's interior itself was graciously brought to life by our environment artist. Though making the level-building tile-based was my idea. Mainly to help with keeping things scale-able.
Which we really needed, because the exams were a very busy time even outside of the project.
2D Art & UI
By the time I started this project it had been a year since S.O.S
In that time I had done a lot more drawing and gotten a lot better so I wanted to try doing more 2D art with this project and with better quality.
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And so I did, I can safely attest without a smidgeon of doubt that all the 2D art in the game is of my doing. Yes everything
(even that one secret wink wink)
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But it was a lot of fun. This project really helped me feel comfortable with my art and the fact that our Character Artist did an amazing job translating the enemy designs in to 3D is a testament to that.
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FailSafe was the very first character to be designed for the game, and a holdover from some ideas we had for the dogfighting game the client wanted. And considering how often she'd be seen in-game she had to look good but not too obnoxious that she'd draw all your attention while fighting. Her rambling on about factoids of the things you've scanned is meant to be fun, not intrusive.
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Designing the UI was one of the earlier things I did for the project. Like most of the project the UI had to be scale-able and easily used for multiple purposes.
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I did some of the basic Unity anchoring and positioning of the UI assets, but I heartily thank our programmer for properly implementing and making the UI functional.
Below is my original UI design made at the very beginning of the project.
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Balancing & UX
Throughout development I played this game about a billion times to ensure everything worked properly and everything was fun.
I spent a good while running through levels and killing enemies. And that was either to see if they interacted with the level well or if there were too many in a room. Having too many enemies per room was a big issue in one of the builds, the game would take way too long.
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I was in charge of the weapon balancing, one weapon that changed throughout development was the Assault Rifle, which originally was a crowd-cleaning bullet hose that would one-shot most enemies with a headshot. Which was pretty satisfying but also completely broken.
In it's current state it's a decent workhorse weapon but I feel now that I'm playing it a while later, I use it a lot less due to the recoil. If I could go back and change something I'd lower the recoil a bit so it'd feel more effective. The current damage is fair, it's just that the recoil makes it hard to consistently hit headshots.
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Another part of balancing were the enemies. Due to the random nature of their spawns they had to stay fairly general in their purpose and stats. The melee enemies (Spycho's) were balanced specifically to be fun cannon fodder. You're meant to rip and tear them apart and enjoy yourself while doing it. The other basic enemy (One-Arm) is another extension of this idea except he's actually threatening to newer players. Though don't underestimate the Spycho's, if you let them bunch up too much they'll all hit you at once and kill you instantly.
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My biggest sample of UX contribution was designing the tutorial. The first level is built to introduce and gradually raise the difficulty of the game as the player progresses. Players learn the new mechanics in a comfortable environment first, here they are forced to learn new mechanics through simply playing with the information they gain.
Once all that basic info is out of the way they're thrown into the first combat segment of the game, and from there tension ramps up.
I'm very proud of the tutorial.
Project Management
For this project I set up a planning in Trello alongside a MoSCoW so we'd have consequent and clear things to work on to build the game from the ground up as efficiently as possible.
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At the end of every week every team member had to list what they'd done for that week. This was mostly done for the exam, but I thought it was pretty helpful overall and may work it into future projects. When I was still doing my internship the company I was working for had a similar way of handling it, except with more flair and fun.
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Other than that I always tried to keep tabs to make sure everyone was doing alright and getting to their work, I try not to enforce unrealistic expectations. One of our projectmates had a rough time getting his work in shape to get himself into a new school for once the exams would be done. Lead him to a lot of stress so I lessened his workload to something that's still attainable weekly and not too much work that he'd just be crunching 24/7.
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Other than that I have a bit of trouble recalling what special things I did besides that, most likely the same I always do when it comes to project management. That stuff just becomes automated after a bit.
This project was a very busy one due to the amount of work I had to do for both the project and the exam. So forgive me for being a bit foggy on the details.
VFX, SFX and Music
These are the blanks I usually fill in when nobody else is really specialized toward doing them. And that's fine because I often enjoy doing it.
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I did all of the VFX in this game, the muzzleflashes, the impacts and the gore. Truth be told not too much VFX work was needed for this project, but that also allowed me to raise the bar on quality a little bit. The explosion is one I put a lot of love into. And the gore is just plain fun because it's instantly rewarding.
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Other than that I did the SFX by taking free sounds and mashing them together to either make new ones or using them as is.
All the voicework is also done by me. I spoke the lines and then put the necesarry filters over em. I wanted to have every one of my projectmates do voicelines for more variety, but there wasn't much time for that sadly.
FailSafe is voiced by a text-to-speech generator with a filter over it. It was very fun to do because it gives a lot of freedom without having to find a good VA. And the quality being obviously robotic and generated just adds quirkiness overall.
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The music was also finely hand-picked by me and polled with the team to make sure everyone liked it. And for the first time ever I made my own music for a project. The Secret Room Theme is composed by yours truly :)
Level Design
As you've probably read before, this game was meant to be scale-able from the start and the level design reflects that.
The baseline of the levels in the game are built up with square panels in a tile-based grid, greyboxes are tested untill we have something that's fun to play. And then I'd spend my time decorating the approved levels with environmental assets provided by our environment artist.
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With the time we had we ended up making just 2 levels. These 2 levels bring the average time players spend on the game up to about 30 minutes. If we had more time we would have made more levels.
Thanks to the way all the parts are kept seperate an endless amount of combinations are possible. But of course, these things take time.
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And just for disclosure, the 2 levels you see in the game were built by me. But I could not have made them look as pretty as I did without the help of our environment artist for the models and lighting.
Concept Art
This was the very first design I did for the game. The idea for FailSafe was pitched very early in development from a quick idea for a ship AI that assists you that came from our weapon artist. I liked it very much and drew a quick design right away. And just like that FailSafe was born
FailSafe in all her holographic glory, Her lower half may not be as interesting as her upper. But it's also rarely seen in-game. Also exam crunch meant go-go-go.
The big tanky brute of the game. A very fun character to design as was the case for most other mercs. Key elements while designing him was that he must be large, wide and imposing. I think that worked out.
It was a little journey to figure out One-Arm's design, he came after the Spycho so I needed to keep the uniforms and general look consistent while still keeping a clear silhouette. So why not just remove a whole arm? Doesn't get much clearer than that. Also his mask is meant to evoke a big moustache.
The very first enemy designed for the game. Originally Spycho's were intended to climb walls with their spiky legs, this would make them a consistent threat despite their short range. But our programmer had enough on his plate as is so it never came about. I'm very happy with this design, look at that big smile.
These guys were designed solely for the opening cutscene, to serve as a bit of worldbuilding and give an idea of what the people back home look like. The Admiral on the left is specifically designed to look like FailSafe because FailSafe is modeled after her in the secret lore. FailSafe is a mass-produced AI meant for controlling Air and Naval craft. Your FailSafe however is a little bugged out. She's not like the other girls.
Cut concept art
Only one design ended up unused, mainly due to time constraints. The Sniper would stay in the backlines to line up a powerful shot, he'd force the player to focus him quickly or never stop moving.
