Overview

It’s to do something that you’re not used to do, but it feels some good when you achieve some of the goals that you impose to you. This was the case with this project, made has a part of a Workshop (Mermelada Lab) hosted by Juegueros CCD.

Personally, I never have done any game using the narrative as the most important part of the game design. Also, using only assets from the marketplace (and spending nothing), adjusting some parts of the design and view of the game. it’s worth saying that my previus experience relates only to programming and anything related to 3D Modeling or animation. So, with that in mind, let’s get this entry started.

The first big deal with the project was to decide what kind of game I want to do. What story I want to tell?. How am I going to tell it?… After sometime thinking about it, I started to see what resources do I have to see what kind of story I can tell. Also looking to things that I have interest in (crime novels and movies, Ocean’s Twelve anyone??? xD).

After deciding that main plot of he story the next step was identifying how the player will interact with the world, what “actors” will he find in his journey. Originally, the game was about solving puzzles per room (rooms like the dungeons of the first Legend of zelda), but i couldn’t come with ideas for the puzzles with a short deadline, so I just have to change my mind. The second draft of the game didn’t include just rooms with puzzles to solve, it was just on big level to explore looking for a safe box, divided with one or more traps that the player have to avoid.

Checking out the characters for the game

Making the Security guards was a little tricky because I wasn’t sure what was going to be their role (besides patrolling their area and looking out for you xD). At first they only did that, patrolling, but testing out new actors for the game (Static lassers, blinking lassers and moving lassers), it became obvious another task that the guards were meant to be, go and checking out for activated alarms…

To Choose the color to create the ambient, I needed help from some artists that work with me in the studio. After explained to them what I wanted to do, and experimente with some colors, we ended using a combination of blue tones.

The final style for the game

Creating the security systems was not hard at all, making the switch to turn off or turn on these systems was easy. And placing them in the world to interact with them made the testing even easier. That give me more time creating the only level in the game, a good thing since my lack of experience making levels (yeah, since it was the first time making level design, it was hard… really hard). But since the editor of unreal was created with level design as a priority, making modifications, different versions and/or keep iterating, I could achieve some of the goals I set for the game. Making it hard, but not imposible. Giving you the feeling that you can go even further. And be as fun as frustrating.

What can I say, sometimes it was frustrating keep the development of this game, but, funny when some moments were spotted by friends and coworkers.

Final words

To be honest, the best part of making this game was seen kids and adults playing it. It’s something that I cannot describe, receiving feedback (like adding a report evaluating your performance, the guards chasing you instead of just giving you the game over screen) to make a better game was awesome.