Clockroach
Rapid Prototype
What did you do?
For this project, I contributed the following:
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Managed & created multiple design documents to better organize and display our ideas moving forward.
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I pitched, prototyped, iterated, and finalized level designs for our team. My goal was to craft the level to highlight our "hold" and "roll" mechanics so that our levels would show off the finalized gameplay I brainstormed for our team. I was able to do this by creating an environment that required each one and sometimes both in tangent to traverse father in the game.
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I also worked with our engineering team to ensure our gameplay was functioning correctly. I did a lot of tweaking when it came to getting pendulum & gear movement/speed to feel good for the players' traversal.
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I designed primary and secondary objectives for each level to engage the player and incite strategic thinking.
Development Time:
2 Week Sprint
13 Person Team:
"The Tinkers"
Movement Diagram
Gameplay Design
Brainstorm
~ Mechanics Expectation
Mechanic-wise, when we got put in our group we had the idea of the cockroaches, environment, and game loop but not what kind of mechanics we would see. Because of this, I started to brainstorm mechanics. When considering mechanics, I had a specific guideline that I wanted to follow and it consisted of three rules. With these three rules in mind, we decided on hold & roll mechanics!
1. I wanted these mechanics to be something you would expect to see from a cockroach.
2. I wanted these mechanics to be something simple that we can add more complexity to as the player progresses.
3. These mechanics need to be something that can be highlighted using the foundation of the clock environment.
Level Design
Iterations & Intentions
~ Intention
For the level design, we really wanted to create an environment that would highlight these hold & roll mechanics while still challenging the player. Because of this, obstacles block the player but don't outright kill them in the first role & hold encounter, meaning players have time to learn these mechanics in a safe environment before continuing to more difficult challenges. Not only does this allow the player to digest those new mechanics, but it also spaces out concepts and keeps things interesting!
~ Iterations (Why Iterate?)
Iterations were crucial in deciding the structure of the level. This is due to the 2-week scope and wanting to show off our best features in the game. These multiple iterations allowed us to scratch ideas that were not possible in two weeks and tweak the ideas we had to best represent our game. Multiple playtests were involved to tweak the timing of gears, pendulums, and player movement successfully.
