This is the small platformer game design. The goal of the game is to unlock the door that is located in the beginning of the map. The character is a treasure hunter who wants to find the treasure that is located at the end of the map. When the character find the treasure, the trap activates and the character must escape before the trap kills the character. At the end of the map, the character escapes from the cave.
Shovel Knight has a good tutorial level that explains most mechanisms for the game. Here are some examples that guide players well without text.
Beginning Part
Most games show complicate button tutorials or reading in the beginning, but Shovel Knight does not provide any button guide. It can be challenging, but Shovel Knight requires knowing only two buttons. Jump and Dig. Many people know about the Jump, but not about what the dig button can do. The game explains the dig button by putting a gold mine next to the starting point. Players are going to dig the gold mine since that is how the normal shovel works. Next to the gold mine, the bug slowly comes from the right side. People will try whether jump or dig to kill the bug. People might try to jump on it because that is how the popular platformer game "Super Mario Bros" works. However, the jump does not kill the bug and it hurts players, but the bug wouldn't hurt them a lot. When the players use the shovel, the bug dies in one hit and it drops golds. The game explains the Dig button by using only two objects.
Teaching New Skill
After the beginning part, the game stops players with send boxes. Players already saw sandboxes and know that it can be destroyed by digging button. However, the sandboxes cannot be destroyed when players are on the sandboxes. When it happens, most games explain how to go through obstacles, but Shovel Knight lets players figure out how to go through the sandboxes. After a few seconds later, players figure out the new skill by pressing jump and down button and it can be destroyed by the new skill. Next to the sandboxes, players find the weak enemy and the goldmine. Like the beginning part, players would test the new skill to them and figure out that the new skill can kill the enemies, but not dig the goldmine. After this part, the game explains another function of the new skill by putting the puzzle that can be passed with the new skill.
Showing new object
In the middle of the map, players can find the moving platform that hasn't seen in the game. In the first moving platform part, the gold encourages players to use moving platform and players do not get any penalty for falling. However, in the second moving platform part, the deadly spike is under the moving platform. Different from the first moving platform, falling from the moving platform gives the death penalty, so players need to be careful for this. Also, when players go through the map more, the game gives a hard puzzle that is mixed with two mechanisms.
Boss Fight
Boss Fight for the tutorial level is noticeable than other games because of the tutorial boss, the black knight, who uses the same skill as players. The boss fight encourages players to use various skills.
I am creating a horror game and I want to make a trailer that shows a lot of abstracted scenes because I don't have a big level to show horror elements and I want to make it looks better in the trailer. Also, the trailer ended with curiosity instead of jumpscare or revealing more information. I think Resident Evil 7 has good references for my game trailer.
Scene1
Scene2
First, after the phone closed up shot, the trailer uses jump cut between environment and story scene that gives a metaphor of danger. It is also good for a nice transition to story and environment.
Closed up shot
Changing Field of View Shot
Second, the trailer uses closed up shot and camera speed very well. In the final part where the trailer gets intense, it uses various camera technics such as closed up shot, birds eye view shot, speeding up, changing the field of view.
Background Shot
Closed up shot
Intense Scene Shot
Logo Shot
With these references, I planned to use the jump cut on slow environment scene and fast event scene with a girl singing in the background. Around 15 seconds, the music gets intense and the camera switches to another shot faster than before. Additionally, the girl counts down the numbers. Before the final part, the girl shows herself when players open the door and it cuts to the black screen with ending all background music except the girl voice "Hey daddy Do you want to play a game?" and the Game Logo fade in the scene.
This is my 4 modular kits for the assignment. (Interstitial, Wall, Doorwall, Floor) For these pieces, I put mostly wood textures with mossy texture and vertex painting. Mossy texture and vertex painting have a different roughness. I had a struggle in the beginning since I didn't know how to make it interesting and give variety, and I decided to put fences that cover the wall, fabric, and ropes. Overall, I feel satisfied with my pieces and I am excited to do next prop projects for the Voodoo Hut.
This is the final version of greybox project for Game design class (GA227) It used to have 6 endings for replayable contents, but my professor does not like it since it cuts players' experience, so I decide to focus on more cinematic experience and horror elements on my game and I am satisfied with this version more. For now, the project stops now, but we will definitely continue on this project when we have enough sources from 3d class (props and modular kits)
I have been working on the 3d project, but there is nothing to show right now since we are stuck on UV mapping, so here is another project. This is the adventure game that I need to create for game design 1 class. For TODAY, I created the timer and fixed the door at the beginning. I will definitely put more stuff and make it looks fancy with exist modular kits from me and my classmates’ work.
I’ve been busy a lot, but I decided to start my weekly journal. Here is my modular kit working in progress 1. For this project, I need to finish four modular kits with 25,000 tris limitation. For rough models, I only use 8538 tris. I hope I can make solid modular kits :)
