Milestone 1 - Prototyping

MONTH 1: GAME DESIGN PREPRODUCTION

MILESTONE 1 - PROTOTYPING

I approached this milestone with the mindset of wanting to quickly establish some form of functionality while still incorporating everyone’s ideas into the prototype. This way, we could quickly see what could work and what needed to be cut for the next milestone.

I had the idea of creating a Shield mechanic for the Player that allowed them to generate a shield while slowly draining the Player’s resources as it was kept activate. My group mates wanted to add a Kick, Dodge, and Reality Phase ability. While kick and dodge are pretty self-explanatory, we intended the Reality Phase ability to be our primary hook—this feature would allow the Player to change between dimensions (similar to the Stranger Things show ‘upside-down’ dimension) to explore, unlock areas, battle unique enemies, etc.

KEY THINGS I WORKED ON THIS MILESTONE:

  • Scripting the Main Camera to follow the Player at a Fixed Perspective

  • Scripting Layer Control for the Camera to identify what the Player is clicking on via Raycasting

  • Scripting Player Movement that allows the Player character to move toward a spot that was clicked on, if the area is walkable

  • Scripting the Generate Shield mechanic, assigning the Left-Shift key to be held down and the Player to Left-Click their mouse to enable the shield and rotate it around via mouse movement

  • Created Assets such as Tower Hazards that animate back and forth, shooting ParticleFXs that can damage the Player on impact

In Milestone 1, the prototype level itself had to have a complete game loop so we added a Main Menu, Pause Menu, Credits and Game Over screen for a death scenario. To test the mechanics, I created some primitive tower hazards that spit fire so the Player would have to use the Dodge mechanic to get through. My group mates designed other puzzle-based assets to test out the Shield ability and Shift Reality mechanics.

The prototype and the way we were implementing our mechanics still wasn’t feeling right. The mechanics just didn’t work together in a way that made sense contextually. And all these ideas felt as if they were essentially getting thrown against a wall, hoping that one would stick. So after we concluded this milestone, I knew we had to really turn things around fast if we were to create anything substantial that everyone on the team could become excited about.

Closing out this Milestone, I met with the team and asked them to think about what kind of game they wanted to create. What were their inspirations, creative passions, etc. I wanted to have a team environment where we could all share our ambitions and help each other achieve them together within this game we were setting out to create.

Instead of focusing on just getting a good mark in class, I wanted to shift everyone’s efforts toward creating a good game. So, I presented the idea to create a Concept directory for everyone to contribute any concept art that inspired them, music or game references. We also added a place for anyone to write up a plot or story board for our game should a spark of inspiration arise throughout development. I believe this shift toward a freely creative focus has helped reinvigorate the team’s approach when entering Milestone 2.