Studio prototypes
I worked on quite a few prototypes, but here I want to highlight two that I feel had a lot of potential and had interesting design choices.
Prototype 1: Repair Crew
Game Design
In Repair Crew you control a little robot guy that can't do much besides pick up and drop. But the other robot-like things you pick up are also the buttons on your controller.
So if you pick up a R1 button and drop it into a socket. Your R1 now does something. The same goes for your trigger buttons, they control everything slightly differently though because they are analog. You could also socket another analog stick for different results.
If we had more time I strongly feel we could have made something very cool out of this. Especially at the end of the video you can see the entire level and all the things your buttons are manipulating. I have never seen anything like it.
Level Design
The level for the prototype was more a mechanics showcase then anything else. So not much to say about that.
Prototype 2: Hide & Snap
Hide and Snap was a 3 day game jam. It's a first person "shooter" in which you try to take pictures of the other players (Cryptids).
Game Design
Charge up:
The camera always has to be charged up first before you can snap your picture. Creating very tense do or "die" moments when players faced each other. Who's going to shoot first? Do I run or do I go for it?
Field of view and movement speed:
Limiting the field of view and movement speed a lot when looking through the lens created instant risk and reward gameplay.
Flash!:
Shooting players would create a big flash, revealing your location to the others.
Items:
Items could be picked up by shooting at QR codes. Making it so you can go for the item if you really want it, but it does reveal where you are.
Level Design
For a game jame game and a multiplayer shooter it actually had very strong level design.
The level is broken up in pieces and each character brings their own part of the level to the match.
This came with several cool design aspects:
- Each player has their own home turf, that they know best
- It's very clear and easy to know and describe where something is happening
- Unique levels! Because the layout and characters aren't always the same
Another strong piece of level design are the many see through objects and walls in the level. Allowing for players to see each other but not "kill" each other. Making it feel very different from the regular FPS.
