Week 9 - Assignment 2 OnePage and OneSheet
This week I transitioned from pitch documentation, to initial gameplay prototyping with my game, For Independence - Freedom - Happiness. Following the creation of my pitch, and visuals (my poster and onesheet), I moved on to design and prototype gameplay systems in GDevelop 5. My aim, was to create a 2D platformer gameplay experience, that is hopeful, respectful and emotional, based on an historical event - the Fall of Saigon.
A short 2D platformer, represents the events of April 30, 1975 the day of the reunification of Vietnam. The player, as a lone soldier, is navigating through bombs, ruined cities, and dead comrades on their quest to the independence palace to raise the flag of reunification. The aim of the game is to place emotive tone versus excitement and action. The gameplay provides themes of sacrifice, unity and memory.
Move and jump (← → + Space)
Avoid collapses and bombs
HP (health points): (100 max; lose 10 per hit)
Player raises the flag (the end), triggers a historical epilogue
Gameplay Development Progress
Using GDevelop 5, I created the first draft of the games interactive systems:
HP System: a health bar which decreases -10 per collision with a bomb. If health = 0, the player is dead. I built it using global variables, triggers for damage, and a custom UI bar.
Bomb Drop System: bombs are spawned at intervals from the top of the screen at random x coordinates, and continuously fall. Each bomb explosion is triggered by collision with the ground OR player. I experimented with using timers on the objects as I altered velocity to build tension.
Platforming Level Design: The game is comprised of several, short sections (acts), each act is a distinct journey:
jungle → Shawn ruins → Saigon outskirts → independence checkpoint
Each of these segments/acts, provide different obstacle and navigation hazards, including traversable and blockable damages ground, flame hazards, and walls that impose the player to either jump over or push through.
Narrative-integrated Obstacles: In stage 2, While ruined buildings made it tricky: Ruined buildings didn't exist just to occupy space, but as movement flow. My hope was to convey part of the player experience, with the placement of the environment. In that is how the player imagines the emotional weight of the destruction below and all around them.
Iterative Refinement & Challenges
The first round of playtesting provided a few considerations:
Stage 2 was too difficult, the spawn-rate of the bombs was too difficult that the player really didn't have act/react. I slowed down the bomb drop timer, randomized spawn zones, but still allowed a challenge, but way to have a little leeway for success and failure.
Realization of Lack of clarity in the ending: the flag-raised ending just faded to black. I am in the process of developing a voice-over epilogue while I am also going to add a camera pan to the soldiers raised flag shot for a sense of emotional closure.
Missing polish: I will be adding explosion sounds and a more thorough feedback system (flashing screen, vbration) to amplify the key points in the game.
I am also hoping to add a 'collapse', into the animation for the Independence Palace, as a visual representation to conclude the soldiers journey - symbolic victory.