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David Sun's Portfolio
Serious Game Prototype
Boxed In
• Team of 5
• 3 Weeks Production
• Role: Producer & Designer
Concept
What is Co-dependency
Understand Minimalism
Our Goal
Our goal in making this game is to address the Co-dependency issue, not only telling the facts but also putting the player into the actual game scene that represents the life of a Co-dependent pair. Combined with the minimalistic art style, simplify and abstract the issue into game designs. The design's purpose is to keep the fun element as a hook for the players but use the mechanics to represent real-life problems. People in such unhealthy relationships need to be understood and need to be cared for.
Reference
My Contribution
As a System Designer
Design the whole concept of having two boxes in the game as the avatar for the player to control at the same time. To represent the Co-dependency relation, two boxes are given different abilities, and all the systems and puzzles are set to use both of their ability to get over. Both boxes need to reach the end to complete a level. All the design follows the principle of showing their toxic relationship.
The Larger Box can pick up the Small Box to throw it.
Using the throw ability to solve puzzle.
Tap the screen to trigger the following of the Small Box.
Enemies will spawn of two Boxes are too far away.
Color in this game is also carefully designed. All the enemies that could do damage to the larger Box are purple, which according to the Professionals is the best color representing 'shame‘, which is a deadly element in life that can naturally cause people to run away. Player Boxes are pure white, and under the attack of the enemies, will gradually turn into the enemies' color. All the doors with their trigger presses are in the matched color for easier distinguish. Additionally, the background color is changing when the two Boxes are away from each other, the further they are the darker the color is. All the color changes in this game have a meaning.
The background color change.
Changing color on the box as the health indicator.
The Small Box can absorb enemies.
The Small Box can heal the Big Box.
As a Level Designer
The boxes are designed to fall to the next level at the end of each stage, representing the relationship between them is getting sicker and deeper, which also corresponds to the increasing difficulty of the game that they need to work together more often.
Make the player feel painful on purpose by throwing the Small Box to move on too often.
Puzzle that combine both Throwing and Following abilities to solve.
Create a situation in which the player has to separate the two Boxes far enough to feel scared enough.
Create the sense that the two Boxes are going deeper and deeper.
In total three levels were built for this prototype, and All the levels are being playtested to control and balance the time to complete. Mechanics are introduced gradually by levels. Each level is well designed for the player to familiarize the ability first, and then guide them to cast from simple to advanced.
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As a Producer
Co-manage a team of five counting myself as both designer and producer, including one engineer, one artist, one technical artist, and another producer. We used Trello to manage the project, including creating tasks, assigning work, and creating timelines to schedule deadlines.
Takeaways
The first time I designed a serious platformer game, and had to combine it with the concept of Minimalism. It was a big challenge for me to balance between the fun element and the serious content. This is a great practice for me to abstract some real-life issues into game mechanics by their characteristics.
A valuable experience in designing proper game levels for a platformer. Practiced not only the basic placement of game objects, for example, how to set up the best distance between two platforms, but also some advanced skills of controlling the player's experience by making the puzzles on purpose.
About Our Team
Alexandra (Alex) Cuthbert - Tech Artist
u1052785@utah.edu
Qingyang (Murinus) Liu - Game Artist
u1482568@utah.edu
Roberto Reynoso - Engineer
u1482733@utah.edu
Sarah Homer - Producer
sarah.homer@utah.edu
Shuochen (David) Sun - Designer/Producer
u1481574@utah.edu
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