CAGD 180

CRASH BANDICOOT CLONE

For this midterm for Game Design 180 we had to create our own copy of Crash Bandicoot by hand with separate levels.

Requirements: Have collectibles that you can pick up and eventually gain another life.

Have 4 separate levels to jump between.

Have a spin mechanic and change colors based on if it's in use or not.

Have a button that spins.

Have a UI that updates with every new collectible, level jump, lives, and an ending text.

3D Maze Game V.2 w/Feedback

What Went Right?

• In this level I used previous mechanics from past levels. The jumping from platform to platform was crucial to play tester attention spans. You don't want to be walking forever without any obstacle or challenge so I think this did the job. 

• Players liked the idea of keeping the ground suspended to add a bit of extra care in each step. Of course the game doesn't really start over when you fall but it did help the player understand the situation they're in.

• The alien added a bit of challenge. Having the player choose a direction only for the alien to block the path and start you over. The idea of this level was to get the player to feel stressed and act like its tree house to tree house, which the players understood and enjoyed.

• It was obvious where the player had to go and the flow of the level felt rewarding if completed. The challenges were appropriate for the mechanics of the game given.

What Went Wrong?

• Time spent on this project was a little unorganized. I feel like if I sat down for an hour longer I could've made the level more aesthetically pleasing and fun to explore.

• Getting the alien to work was a hard one. I guess I didn't have the download right on the prefab but the script that came with the alien just sent it to the middle of the entire map and wouldn't stop. I soon personally changed the code to do the correct thing, which was patrol back and forth.

• Creating a suspended level means that you have to reset the level every time the player misses a jump or hits the alien. Even though this is minor, the time spent pausing and playing was a little awkward. 

• Some of the materials I would put on my prefabs would crash the whole unity player. This forced me to restart a couple times before I religiously hit save before everything I did.

• Overall I feel like I didn't do enough with this level and hope to improve it greatly by the next play test.

What Can Be Improved?

• Definitely spend more time on the levels. If I could spend a little extra time honing out the aesthetics and the challenge it would've been a lot better.

• I feel like my last level was a tiny bit better and that had checkpoints and a feeling of progression. I could definitely make this a multi level game and have checkpoints.

• The alien mechanic had me waste a lot of time trying to fix it and reprogram. Turns out it was just a little thing I need ed to change but it was a headache trying to solve it. 

• This whole level could be improved with just extra paths that lead you around to different places. Variety is king.

3D Maze Game V.1 w/Feedback

What went right?

• The core mechanics behind my level revolve around teaching the limits of the movement options. This means that there were three stages in my level that taunt the fundamentals of the entire level.

• The first maze house is lead up to by a platform in which you must jump into the house. This taught that there are certain mechanics in this level you must learn to progress. The first jump went well through all play tests.

• The maze house went very well, teaching players not to trust the light source and that there are other paths if you investigate. The theme was "Mad Science" so I had to have a maze. 

• The second part of the level revolves around patience and physics manipulation. Essentially it's a tight rope walk and if you fail, it's okay because there was a ramp to let you back up. This was my checkpoint system and was very well received. 

• The third house played towards the play tester's ability to jump from platform to platform. All of these houses used up all of the space allocated and was a fun obstacle course. All methods used to teach players mechanics were covert, meaning that to progress you needed to naturally learn the movement of the game.

What went wrong?

• In the future of the games we build I hope to go a more detailed and textured direction. Even though it was fun to get used to and manipulate these resources given to us, we had limited room to colorize and get into the fine details. 

• The light sources throughout the level were a little offset. I would have to spend more time understanding the light systems' options.

• There was no time restraint this time around so there wasn't a rush to finish the map as soon as you can, it was more up to the player.

What can be improved?

• Next time hopefully we have an enemy hunting you possibly or maybe the floor increases in height so you have to run up and are pressured for time. Definitely need to spend a little extra time on the actual details of the level.

• I could also spend more time on the concept art and have it better reflect the level I wish to make. I completely started from scratch from the annotated map and I thought it was necessary now that I can work in 3D space.

• Allowing the player to have more than one path is an interesting after thought I had but I would have to hash out the details in the next map.