Game Design - ThomasMACHINE/PennyWise GitHub Wiki

Overview

Penny for your wish, *Names: Susanne Skjold Edvardsen, Ole Anders Hvalsmarken, Fredrik Lønnemo and Thomas Vincent Lien *

Game Concept

The game is a simple Puzzler where you can interact with elements like bushes and guards to make your way through each level.

Genre

Other puzzler games that are reminiscent are Spyro, Portal, Zelda, and Kings Quest.

Target Audience

PG 6

Game Flow Summary

Each level is its own playable setting. The player starts with an animated intro to the game where the story is set and then plays through levels one to five. After level five there is the last level with intense music, then the game is ended with a cutscene. The difficulty of the levels increases as you reach higher levels.

Look and Feel

The game will be 3D. Fantasy medieval setting with a castle and a dragon. The models have a low number of polygons. The UI and animated assets are 2D.

Gameplay and Mechanics

Control a dragon and help it through the levels. Guide it, steer it. Solve the puzzle of the room. The dragon can change its size depending on the amount of gold it has, which is displayed in a HUD on the screen on the top left side. The dragon has different abilities depending on its different sizes. The abilities of the current dragon are displayed on the HUD on the bottom right along with the current dragon and which dragon would be the next size up and down.

Gameplay

Third-person game, advancing through linear levels and solving the puzzles. It's intended that you can always solve a level without entering it as a specific size, but you cannot always solve it as all sizes, as some levels require you to be a certain size to get to the end portal.

Game progression

Each level gets more difficult in the aspect that the levels have more gimmicks to the solution, or you have to combine gimmicks to complete the level. The final level has a time-sensitive design.

Mission/challenge Structure

Yes, there will be level progression and the puzzles will be more complex later in the game.

Puzzle Structure

Yes. Some have multiple solutions.

Objectives

Free the princess.

Mechanics

Check the other game design wiki.

Physics

Check the other game design wiki.

Movement

Check the other game design wiki.

Objects

What are the objects in the game? Check the other game design wiki.

Actions

Check the other game design wiki.

Combat

There is no combat in the game. There are three kinds of NPCs. You have the non-aggressive slime in level two of the game. It simply hops around and does nothing. Then you have the guards who patrol, and upon catching the game, force a reload of the level. Finally, there is the gold golem which steals one gold coin from the dragon. If it steals the last coin from the dragon, it forces a restart of the game.

Replay and Saving

If you use ESC to go to the main menu, you can then start the game from the current level instead of replaying it.

Cheats and Easter Eggs

The walls in some areas have little friction on them which enables the user to be able to jump at them at high speed and gain altitude. We decided to leave this in as it allows for speedrunning the game, as well as they, were not noticeable for most testers who playtested the game.

The Story, Setting, and Character

The dragon is living in a well when a princess tosses a coin into it. The princess is wishing for freedom and the dragon vows to make her wish come true. The game then starts and you play as the dragon leaving its little cave, climbing a mountain, bypassing guards, getting to the castle, and traveling through its treasure chamber before its discovered by a huge guard and have to run for its life, ending up in the princesses chambers, where it gives the original coin back to her, and she gives her crown to it, they then escape the castle ending the game.

General look and feel of the World

Medieval castle town.

Areas

Level 1: Cave and mountain pass Level 2: Small Cave with nonaggressive Slimes and a path with patrolling guards Level 3: Platforming city with guards Level 4: Entrance to the castle Level 5: Inside of castle, the hallway of guards and a treasury Final: Long hallway leading outside to the princess tower

Visual System

There is a hud on the screen. On the top left side, there is a UI showing amount of coins collected, and the coins needed to evolve in size. There is also a score that counts coins collected after you reach the larger size as feedback from players let us know they wanted to be able to pick up coins even if they were maxed size.

On the bottom right there are icons showing which size the dragon you're playing is, as well as its abilities. This is updated as the player changes the size of the dragon.

Control System

WASD - Movement Space - Jump, double jump or glide Q - Drop coins and shrink a size C/V - Drop held item, or pick it up L - Roar R - Reload level ESC - Menu

Audio, Music, and Sound Effects

Created for this game by the talented extern Birger Wessel Audio. Not all levels got music, but we have SFX on the dragon.

Help System

Menu with tips. Pop-up explaining interactions.

Artificial Intelligence

Implemented on the Gold Golem to chase the dragon when in sight.

Player and Collision Detection, Path-finding.

This was implemented for the Gold Golem. It follows a set path that it is "patrolling" but will deviate if it spots the dragon.

Technical

Our computers. A mix of windows, Linux and mac. We Used Unity to develop this project.

Target Hardware

Windows.

Development Hardware and Software (including the game engine)

Our computers and Unity.

Network requirements

None.

Game Art

Created by Susanne Skjold Edvardsen who was a member of the group. Background like trees and such was fetched from the unity store for free.

This is an extension of parts of cs.unc.edu