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Overview

The following page discusses the design decisions/ components behind the basic "level one" plunger that has been implemented within the game.

Final Design

Plumber's Plunger

Stats

• Damage: 3
• Cooldown:
• Attack Type: Melee
• Level: 1
• Craftable? Yes
• Materials: 1x Wood, 1x Rubber

Background Research

The design idea behind this sprint and creating weapons were to create few weapons but meaningful and relatable weapons that plumbers would most likely utilise throughout their careers. After much research into identifying commonly associated items that a plumber would have, one of the items included was a plunger. The idea of a plunger would most suit the theme of the story as well because it considered the final aspect of allowing an individual to sink Atlantis through unclogging a toilet of some sort. Furthermore, plumbers would often need to use a plunger in order to resolve common toilet clogs within industry.

Design Inspirations

After conducting initial background research into plungers, a few items of inspiration were sourced and taken as the basis of what would form our plunger image.

Inspiration Name	Image	Reason
Inspiration One		The reason for inspiration behind this image was based on the shape formation of the rubber component at the bottom. I wanted to incorporate an item which allowed for a slightly thicker part at the bottom of the plunger as depicted by the extra pixel width. This provided the image of a non-stagnant image, providing a more '3D' after effect on the plunger.
Inspiration Two		This second inspiration was focused upon enhancing the lighting effects of the plunger. As seen within iteration one, there were no lighting effects on the plunger and this image was then taken into consideration for components that could be added. We see that there is a slightly lighter coloured red component on the plunger and this allows the viewers to be more emersed within the image as it now feels as though the image has come alive through its '3D' component.

Phase 1: Sketching

As with all other weapon designs, sketching was completed first in order to attain a brief understanding and feel of how the weapon might look like. Furthermore, these sketches were used as the basis of the pixel art drawing shown in the next few iterations. User testing was done throughout the iterative process with interviews being conducted as per outlined within the Weapons User Testing Protocol as well as Sprint 2 User Testing.

Within the initial sketches, two different colours were utilised - Red and Black. Since there was a collaboration between the NPC team, we thought it would be best to provide an option to define which weapons could be used by NPCs and which were to be used by players. This option could then be actioned within later sprints of the game but for this sprint, only the red plunger was used and the notion of this idea was provided through user interviews conducted (see the section below on user testing for clarification).

Phase 2: User testing

During this phase of the design, I wanted to attain more information on the plunger colour that should be used within the game. Furthermore, I wanted attention details on the plunger created to understand and see if users thought that it the items within this first sketch and drawing represented anything remotely close to that of a plunger. Note that these items of further user testing was asked ontop of the questions provided within the user testing interviews from sprint 1.

User feedback data can be found here.

User Feedback

The user feedback provided to me was quite an eye opener as mentioned before within the sketching protocol. This was because though many users were alright with the idea of having a red plunger as it seemed more appropriate and fit into the hand of the player whilst providing maximum contrast, they also mentioned that it might be a better idea to differentiate the different weapons that a player and an NPC/enemy could hold. For example, a user mentioned that it would make a more 'unique' feel to ensure that the certain weapons that enemies utilsied could not be crafted and subsequently utilised by the player and likewise the same for the NPCs. Furthermore, if they were allowed to carry the same weapon, then there should be a distinction between the two to provide a 'uniqueness' to the game. This originally conflicted with the notion that enemies could drop weapons on death and so to properly integrate this, only specific weapons were allowed to be utilised by both the players and NPCs/Enemies alike. Such is seen in this case with the plunger.

Note: After liaising together with the NPC team the original red plunger was provided to them. The NPC team then proceeded to complete further iterations on the plunger following the sketches seen in the above sections. This can be seen within the later comments of NPC Plumber Friend collaboration ticket.

Phase 3: Weapon Pixel Drawing

Iteration Name	Image	Changes
Original Drawing		N/A
Iteration 1		The goal for this first iteration after user feedback was to implement the lighting for the plunger. This way users were able to engage and relate more to the combat items. Furthermore, doing this also allowed greater visual depth creating the 3D effect mentioned earlier.
Iteration 2		Through user feedback, it was proposed that we should add an additional element to the weapon. Furthermore, that this element would need to correlate with something that could be seen on a plunger. Considering that plungers were mainly used to unclog toilets, we decided that the component of fecal matters should be added to the plunger to have a sense of the plumber theme. Moreover, our collaboration with the NPC team detailed that the guards would be the ones holding onto this plunger and that they had been categorised as the main character's (plumber) friend who was probably working down within the sewers.
Final Design		Finally, the design was iterated yet once more to incorporate an animated plunger that had feces dropping off the side of it. This combined all elements of user feedback from the previous iterations, really enhancing the effects of this weapon.

Plunger Attack Animation

In designing the plunger attack animation, I looked at various inspiration images and animations. My idea for animating the plunger was to take the concept of suctioning in the cup of the plunger and it bursting out upon attack.

Image	Description	Link
	This image shows how the plunger is suctioned in. This concept was used in ideating how the animation would look when cups of the plunger were suctioned.	https://img.freepik.com/premium-vector/cartoon-red-wood-toilet-plunger-house-cleaning-tools-domestic-equipment-repair-sink-bath-clog_302536-61.jpg?w=2000
	This stabbing action of the dagger with the impact lines, was used as inspiration in my design of the plunger attack, to demonstrate the impact of the suction.	https://gfycat.com/pl/stickers/search/knife+fight

From the sketches I drew, I came up with my first iteration of the animation. This involves 12 frames which combined together to form the smooth animation.

Iteration #1

The first iteration of the plunger attack animation underwent user testing to test whether people thought the attack animation was appropriate. For the full user testing results please click here. Some of the key takeaways from the user feedback included:

• weapon needs more force
• the suction needed to be more obvious
• faster and more aggressive
• more explosive

From this feedback, I worked on making the impact of the plunger and the suction action more obvious. In the final design, I made the attack faster and more impactful so that it would be more obvious in the game environment.

Final Design

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Author

• Caleb Ang
• GitHub: PurrplePandaa
• Discord: Anneyong Haseyo#8083
• Slack: Caleb Ang

#Author Sprint 3

• Madi Feddema
• GitHub: madifeddema
• Discord: madi-feddema
• Slack: Madi Feddema