Frankenfruit Studio’s Backyard Snowdown has finally hit “release”, after months this game has been in the making by our small student team at AIE Melbourne since September.
This Game Trailer has been made to reflect the theme of the game and shows off the gameplay as it is at the Gold Milestone.
(Credit to https://incompetech.com/ for the music)
A huge thank you...
...to everyone in my team during this process. @hamishsmithers as my fellow designer, @Mitchell_C_S and @nerbzthedude my programmers, and please take a look at some of my artists’ work:
Studio: Playdead
Genre: 2D Platformer, Adventure
Platform: PS4, PC, Xbox One
Year of Release: 2016
Summary:
Inside is, at its core, a story told not only through characters but through their environment. Playing as a boy seemingly on the run from the very start of the game. Using left and right movement, verticality through level design and navigating your way through puzzles your learn about the world around you.
(Spoilers Warning)
Core Mechanics:
Movement, limited movement makes this game straightforward and means that from the start, the player knows how they can explore this world.
Couple this with the Puzzle Design and you have Inside. The puzzles aren’t overly challenging to the player but get increasingly more difficult as the game goes on. Using mechanics such as taking over the movement of NPCs in the background to activate things for you in the foreground and fluffing them up as you get used to each one is how the puzzles stay interesting through to the end.
Inside would not be half the game it is without its Art. The levels are beautifully crafted and everything tells a story. The dystopian world you travel through is unique and instantly recognisable. Learning about Narrative Design earlier in the year we were encouraged to make the player ask; “What happened?” “Why is this the way it is?”. Inside does both of these seamlessly.
MDA:
Having limited movement with the art of the game generates the creep factor. Making the player on edge and nervous, replicating these feelings from the boy’s own. These mechanics work well together to create the creepiness and to help the player identify with the boy.
The puzzles are directly tied to the level design. The art is used to make the puzzle geometry fit into this world and not stick out the way it does in so many other games. There is a unity between the two mechanics throughout the whole game. This makes it easy to make the player feel like they are living through the boy’s story. In tune with the narrative.
Game Loops
Core Loop: Movement - Solve Puzzle
Moment to Moment: Move - Puzzle
Level Loop: Movement - Solve Puzzle - Finish Section - Start Section
Session Loop: The game can be completed in a single setting, but will most likely consist of 6 level loops (Half) at a time.
Innovation:
Inside has taken everything that worked with 2D sidescrollers from the start of their age through to now and made it in a 3D, dystopian art style that tells an enormously powerful story. There is no use of weapons, the player is helpless in combat of any kind. Get caught and you’re done. There are elements of stealth and traditional puzzle platforming working cohesively in a way that, has been done before BUT not done much in sidescrolling games nor one with a dark undertone of both story and art. (Unless you include Limbo).
What’s to be Learned from Inside?
If you’re looking for a game that is, comparatively, small. BUT! Cohesive and powerful and polished, look no further. Inside’s design is not fluffed to add content. It is what it is, and that makes for strong Design; level design, puzzle design, gameplay design, story and sound design.
1 week to go and with Bug Fixing consuming most of our energy, it’s nice to sit back and look at how far we’ve come.
Alpha:
Gold:
As a team, we started polishing earlier than we needed to meaning the whole team has played the game as much as possible and the game has only changed for the better immensely.
I mean it’s changed a lot...this has resulted in stress and determination but for Good Reasons.
With Frankenfruit Studio’s maiden voyage into the vast world of Game Design, we have finally hit Beta and are on the last 2 weeks of polish.
Touching up our models, having fun with our Jumping Snowman (Don’t worry, he jumps much slower in game...don’t want him to get tired...) and our Level Design is primarily:
Studio: The Fullbright Company
Genre: Adventure
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Year of Release: 2013
Core Mechanics:
Movement: Allowing the player to move around the house.
Interaction: Allowing the player to find clues, figure out the story and build the world around them.
MDA:
Movement - Interaction: Moving from room to room in the house, being led by a trail of ‘breadcrumbs’, gives the player a sense of both wonder and intrigue as they try to uncover the mystery.
Game Loops
Core Loop: Clue - Assess Clue - Move to next clue
Moment to Moment:Find Clue - Assess Clue
Level Loop: Begin Game - Repeat Core Loop until Mystery is Busted! - Finish Game.
Session Loop: As above. Roughly 3 hours, depending on mystery solving ability.
Innovation:
Tells an in-depth story, without laying eyes on a single character, not even yourself. Allowing the player to dive headfirst into the narrative of the House and the people in it.
Level Design:
Using classic tricks like sideways lamps to point to clues on the wall makes sense in this literally upturned House. Being in a house, lights are used realistically to convey direction to the player. The house is locked off from the start, slowly unlocking areas as you move through but you are constantly going back to old areas via new secret pathways in the walls. Doing this makes for a tight and concise level design without the player feeling trapped or confined.
Narrative Design:
The player is given the end of the story and have to now figure out what happened to get it there. Her sister has run away and specifically told her not to try and figure it out. The premise alone is something not often seen in games, usually the ending has a twist but this one, it was exactly as she said. We just HAD to know why. Uncovering secrets of her family home and relatives both past and present, Kaitlin (The protagonist) explores her world with a new purpose and opened eyes. We, the player, are alongside her discoveries the whole way.
What Have I Learnt?
Telling a good story doesn’t mean you have to be the protagonist. It doesn’t need to be that you’re controlling the person going through the trials and tribulations. You’re the one at the end, putting together what happened after being left behind, and it’s just as compelling.
Studio: ThatGameCompany
Genre: Adventure/Art Game
Platform: iOS, PS3, PS Vita, PS4
Year of Release: 2009
Flower is the second game from ThatGameCompany and provides players with an interesting and different take on storytelling within video games. Rather than controlling a player, or a character within a story you play as the wind blowing flower petals around the world/levels. Primarily, the biggest focus of the game was to invoke emotions within the player. Taking conventional gameplay and game design up to this point and only using what could benefit their emotional storytelling.
(Spoiler Warning)
Core Mechanics:
Movement - The movement in this game is using the wind to control the horizontal and vertical movement of flower petals.
Obstacles - Moving around and dodging obstacles so that the flower petals don’t get damaged and/or can continue through the end of the level.
Flowers - In what could be described as pollinating/enlightening other flowers and ‘dead’ nature surrounding them. Moving close to other flowers makes them bloom, causing a chime complementary to the BGM and when a group of flowers are in bloom an entire area will burst with life and mark itself as complete to the player so they can move to the next ‘dead’ area.
Music - The music is not only pleasing to the player but is directly tied to the gameplay. It changes as the player hits different sections of the level. It tells the story, heightening the desired emotion and making gameplay slow down or speed up. Provides meaning to the movement mechanic. It is pleasing to bring to life all the nature not just visually but audibly as well.
MDA:
Movement - Flowers: Moving the wind towards the other flowers throughout the level is the Core Mechanic and Main Loop of the game. It is what makes Flower what it is. Controlling the wind with the accelerometer feels odd to someone who rarely uses motion controls but it didn’t feel at odds with the gameplay and after a few levels getting used to it, it was fun. Each time you hit one of the flowers it is pleasing to the player. This mechanic is peaceful and rewarding.
Movement - Obstacles: Navigating through the level, dodging the easier obstacles at the start when the player is getting used to the controls and the more difficult ones later in the game that will hurt the player makes up the challenge of the game. You don’t have to hit all the flowers through the game, but get hurt by the obstacles and you’ll feel it. The player’s desire to get through without getting hit and then accomplishment of such is where the main section of the reward comes from.
Movement - Music: As you move through the level, the music directly links into your movement. It makes you feel calm and peaceful. You are the wind, gathering petals, bringing life as you move through the level but those moments where you’re moving incredibly fast and the music reflects that; this is where the juice of the game lies. You feel almost empowered.
Flowers - Music: Bringing life to each of the flowers is aesthetically pleasing, they come into bloom and if they’re the last one then the camera zooms out and the whole area comes to life. But what makes them most rewarding is the little chimes you get as you move past each one. Get a succession of them the way it’s designed and it creates a harmony to the BGM. This feels good. It’s reward to the player is primarily through the music and sound. They feel like they’ve just accomplished something and it feels good. A massive sense of positivity.
Game Loops:
Session Loop: A session would typically be a single level. However the game itself is usually finished in 2-2.5 hours.
Innovation and Narrative Design:
Flower takes everything conventional about games and storytelling and throws it out the window. The mechanics are something not often explored, moving through accelerometer and the player is the Wind not the Petals. There is no pinpoint character to grab onto and say; “It’s their story”. There’s a story in there with a beginning, a middle, and an end but it’s not told through conventional storytelling methods. There’s no dialogue, but there’s character conflict and story progression.
Flower’s approach to Narrative Design is it’s most innovative and influential aspect.
Level Design:
The levels are designed in such a way that the player can always see where they have to go, they can see the paths designed for them to take but they don’t have to. They can go whichever way they want. There are boundaries to the levels to stop them going outside the designated playspace. But there are no limits on how they play the open sections of the game. Some parts of the levels are there to tunnel the player in and move them to the next section but even then, the verticality in the game is intense. It’s filled to the brim with illusion of player choice, and quite often, the player is moving so fast through these sections that they won’t pick up on it unless they’re looking specifically for it.
What Have I Learnt?
Not all games have to follow a 3-Act structure to tell a story. Not all games need violence and fighting. Not all games need to have online multiplayer. Some games thrive in those areas but games like Flower (and all of ThatGameCompany’s games for that matter) explore what could be different about games. How can they still be a game and look/feel/play like no other game. Flower could, at it’s core, be called a “Wind Simulator” but then you factor in the narrative through that mechanic, the meaning and the underlying tone of the game and it’s definitely an adventure game just not like we’ve seen before.
Frankenfruit Studio’s Backyard Snowdown is well into its Beta Stage and the level design has begun. After making many a greybox level, the fun part is about to begin: testing!!
From the start of development, it has been really important to have an inclusive roster of characters. Initially sitting on the idea of 4-8 (depending on scope) selectable characters. That was then changed to basic character models that could be customised with hats, gender and skin tone. After feedback from our first presentation to a Teacher Panel, we went back to selectable characters.
Rolling with that we now have 4 adorable and quirky characters, 2 male and 2 female (gender equality has been really important from the start). Here is the first one, looking to be ready for Alpha!
Making a Sell Sheet for our game was...interesting. Featuring such challenges as; paper shortages, formatting details taking hours longer than anticipated, and somehow 2 A5 PDfs not being the same size when it came to printing...
Lesson of the Day - Don’t be afraid to think outside the box, a Sell Sheet doesn’t have to be a sheet of paper.
Presenting Frankenfruit Studio’s Backyard Snowdown to an Industry was the most intensely nervewracking 7 minutes of the year. Stand up in front of a whole group of your peers and teachers and show your work to be criticised, (did I mention in front of everyone), not just criticised but by a panel of Industry professionals! No thanks, but seriously I’m so glad we put everything we had into it.
We presented our game, still at its Alpha Stage along with concept art for the rest of production. We spoke about why we loved it and at the end...they seemed to as well. There were a few concerns regarding being able to see a snowball on a snow-filled field but that was the worst of it. Getting praise from people you hope to be working with one day is such an amazing feeling.
Despite not being able to remember our slides/lines only 5 minutes before being locked into the presentation room, our whole team spoke and spoke well, clearly and passionately about Backyard Snowdown.
Backyard Snowdown is well underway, our programmers have not stopped to get as much in the game as possible before we hit Beta. Which is great! We now have a fully playable and (dare I say) fun game to work on.
Main Mechanics:
The most important aspect to Backyard Snowdown is the snowballs. They can be thrown directly at the other players to inflict damage, or (and don’t ask for the logic) they can ricochet off anything except other players to hit their mark.
Backyard Snowdown is an imagination-fueled Snowball fight. One of the main mechanics is a Dash Manoeuvre. Primarily intended as an evasive alternative to standard movement, if you’re unarmed you can dash over the snowballs to pick them up.
So, as a Designer...I did some drawings to help convey mechanics in the GDD we are currently writing. Feeling pretty proud of my work, one of our awesome artists sends through a ‘sketch’...
Enter Frankenfruit Studio! This is our LOGO ^ isn’t it cute?
For the End of Year Project, we have all been placed in teams and are gearing up to make a complete game. It’s scary, exciting and a little bit terrifying.
Frankenfruit Studio is currently doing all the Pre-Production Documents to get this game off the ground. First Step: Logo Design. A collaboration from all our artists has given us this adorably weird little mascot/logo.
With the End Of Year Project under way, the first step is deciding on what game to make. What do we dedicate our lives to for the next few months??
There is only one solution: the most epic snowball fight ever!
The one that all kids thought their backyard games actually were. The best parts of the most amazing corners of your imagination will materialise! Well, I hope so, at least.
Looking forward to working with @hamishsmithers as my fellow Designer/Producer for this crazy project! Stay tuned!!
With the QA and Testing module wrapping up, I have learnt a lot!
I was able to test this little game; Bijou and Big; being developed by students of Vancouver Film School it currently has 2 levels and a boss and has a lot of potential. With the art-style being alluring from the start and the characters are instantly relatable.
Through testing this and a bunch of other games the most prominent lesson has definitely been the difference between studios’ definitions of “Alpha” and “Beta”.
Everything from how important it is to test early. Test often. And test differently. Asking the right questions and providing the right testing conditions for what you want to find out from your testers is an art form in itself.
