Solo Project

Unity C#.

Sole Developer

Year 3 Trimester 2 Anglia Ruskin University

Personal Grade = 70% (First Class)

This artefact was produced as half of my personal project in my final trimester, paired with a 3,000-word paper discussing the artefact, which can be seen below.

The Artefact is a multi-level puzzle game designed to look similar to the retro Windows-95 operating system. The board for the puzzles will be represented as a virtual keyboard, allowing the player to utilise keys, as the levels progress new mechanics are introduced to the player for them to use to solve more complex levels. The artefact will concentrate on onboarding techniques to teach the player mechanics of the game, such as playful tutorialisation, consistent design and a demonstration of scaffolding theory.

Development Report (.pdf - 23 page)

ArtefactReport.pdf

This report was submitted alongside the artefact for 40% of the grade, the aim of the report was to answer the question "How to effectively onboard new players into unfamiliar situations" and throughout the report I learnt a multitude of strategies and reviewed them all in the later sections of the report. For this piece of work I was awarded TBA%.

Features

Level Loader Menu

I worked very hard together with our two great artists to create this system of customising players throughout the game, I learnt a lot about User Interface programming during this project.

Intentionally, I made the decision to not overwhelm the player with too much information, to correlate with the original goal of the project, therefore more detailed information can be accessed by hovering over sections with the mouse.

The layout page was a late addition to the project, I decided it was better for usability to allow the player to see the layout of the puzzle before committing to exiting the menu and seeing if they are interested in completing that particular puzzle.

Inventory Systems

Each level has its own inventory delegation, which was decided on through extensive player testing and feedback to ensure enjoyable gameplay.

The drag and drop feature was utilised as most people who have used a computer understand the concept, which isn't purely a video game mechanic, ensuring easier onboarding.

Tutorialisation

Scaffolding Theory, as described in the aforementioned report, was utilised during the development of the project, slowly subjecting the players to new features and providing support where required, but tapering off as progress is made through the game until the player understands all key mechanics of the game.

As the art style of the project was decided to embrace nostalgia I made the decision to revive everybody's favourite assistant, Clippy.

Clippy is a helpful and funny helper that follows the players through their journey in the game, they provide information on each level that the player should read to fully understand the game, which is helped by their whimsy and playful reactions to player movements.

Gamebridge Entry

This project, alongside Ball Stars has been entered into the '2024 Gamebridge Student Games Festival' in Cambridge on the 15th of June.

External Assets Utilised

Credits Page

Download Page (Itch.IO)

Future of the project...

Based on feedback during Gamebridge 2024 the deicsion may be made to proceed with development of this project further than University, considerations were made throughout the development to ensure scalability for future features and levels to be implemented very easily. The game could be released publicly via Steam as a personal advertisement and an asset to share on my CV.

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