Genre: Action, Top Down
Built with: Unity, C#
Development Time: 3+ Months
Team Size: 5
Primary Roles: Level Designer, Programmer, "Tilemap Guru"
Your name is Zippy and you're a rollerblading graffiti artist. In the forgotten outskirts and abandoned underground of cities, you find your safe space. However, in a city oversaturated with bland tastes, something has manifested from the greyness of these walls.
But, there's still hope! You've been honing your skills and these monsters are no match for your colorful trails. Take a stand against the majority, but be careful not to succumb to the masses...
But, there's still hope! You've been honing your skills and these monsters are no match for your colorful trails. Take a stand against the majority, but be careful not to succumb to the masses...
Pre-Production
Heavenspot is a 2D Top Down Action game where you can attack your enemies by slowing down time, drawing a line, and zipping through enemies!
This project was a part of a class called Major Studio Spring, where we follow a development path similar to what game studios do. This was my first time working on a digital game with a team, so I set to make myself useful by providing resources and solutions to any and all development + design questions.
This project was a part of a class called Major Studio Spring, where we follow a development path similar to what game studios do. This was my first time working on a digital game with a team, so I set to make myself useful by providing resources and solutions to any and all development + design questions.
The original version of Heavenspot was called Focuslash, which was a short prototype by Carsen Decker. Much of what he coded was kept in the final product, but we ended up making major design changes when I introduced the idea of designing levels with a tile map system.
So, initially, the prototype of the game only had 1 randomly generated level/arena, and that was created by copy and pasting sprites that had box colliders of various size on them. This made the original prototype have more of a arcade-y feel to it, with the only goal to be to obtain a high score.
It was fun on its own right, but I thought it would be interesting to introduce a sense of progression (which I'll go over more in the Design portion) by making new levels. However, a problem Carsen ran into in the original version was that his original method was inefficient in making them.
Thus, I introduced Unity's Tile Map system, something I studied on my own with other projects. We had one day where I sat everyone down and gave an improvised lecture on how the system works and the benefits of it.
Thus, I introduced Unity's Tile Map system, something I studied on my own with other projects. We had one day where I sat everyone down and gave an improvised lecture on how the system works and the benefits of it.
Design
Because it was much easier to make levels now, it was decided to give the game a sense of progression.
Besides the usual "each level gets designed to be more difficult" type of progression, we worked on other ideas, such as limiting the ability of the player character at the start. We also added in different times of enemies as well, and even included a boss at the end.
Essentially, we used a mix of internal elements (the player getting more abilities) and external elements (differing level design and enemies) to get the good feel of progression.
We didn't have much time to add much more, due to the short timeline we had, so we made sure we included things that were the most obvious in terms of making the player feel like they were advancing throughout the game.
Besides the usual "each level gets designed to be more difficult" type of progression, we worked on other ideas, such as limiting the ability of the player character at the start. We also added in different times of enemies as well, and even included a boss at the end.
Essentially, we used a mix of internal elements (the player getting more abilities) and external elements (differing level design and enemies) to get the good feel of progression.
We didn't have much time to add much more, due to the short timeline we had, so we made sure we included things that were the most obvious in terms of making the player feel like they were advancing throughout the game.
Programming
Many of the basic gameplay elements were already present in the prototype, so I help added some features to make it feel more like a proper game.
I programmed a main menu, a pause menu, and some camera transitions. I also initially worked on a room to room camera system, something similar to a Top-Down 2D Zelda, although this didn't end up working out in the end. I still eventually used this system in future projects of my own, however.
The code I was used was very simple-in fact, it was actually code from other games/projects I worked on. It taught me the value in saving simple code from past projects for future use, as it saved a lot of time.
Overall, my main contribution to the programming side of the game was juice and quality of life improvements.
Story/Art
The original prototype of the game had no story at all, and the art was just made out of different colored cubes. However, one gameplay design that informed the art style was the main mechanic, the due to the way the move ends with the player moving forward slightly in the direction they were dashing. We leaned into that with a skater aesthetic, inspired by the likes of Jet Set Radio.
We had a little bit of a story in mind, although considering the time we had with the project, it was cut down considerably. We kept it in the back of our heads as sort of a motivating factor to come up with ideas such as new enemies and potential mechanics.
We had a little bit of a story in mind, although considering the time we had with the project, it was cut down considerably. We kept it in the back of our heads as sort of a motivating factor to come up with ideas such as new enemies and potential mechanics.
Project's Future
This game was a huge milestone to me due to many factors: It taught me the value of setting deadlines and delegating tasks to others. It allowed me to work with others to come up with cool design ideas, and, because of the pandemic, it taught me how to work from home.
I'm not sure if the entire team would ever come back to this specific iteration of the project, but I'll keep the important developments values this game took with me for all of my future works.
I'm not sure if the entire team would ever come back to this specific iteration of the project, but I'll keep the important developments values this game took with me for all of my future works.