Light me Up



The game was developed as part of a game design project course. About every other week, constraints were added to be considered in the design. The constraints to be considered were the following :

  1. Single Player 2D
  2. High Score
  3. Maximum five minutes of play
  4. maximum 9 colours
  5. No text Do not explicitly explain player controls
  6. Use either mouse or arrow keys for movement and only ONE other key


Team

Date

Constrains

Duration

Supervised by



Mehtap Kuruçay | Matthias V. | Deren S. | Sansa

6th Semester 2020

Nr. 1 - 6 [see above]

3 month

Richard Boeser



PROJECT DETAILS



The game is based on the play of light and shadow. I decided to develop a cross-section of the gameplay because it was particularly important to me to spend as much time as possible on the core of the game. The player has the ability to push his light sources away from him, which results in more light being generated. However, there is the danger that the player is not fast enough to collect the light source again and thus remains in the dark. In addition, it is possible to let the light sources, which appear in the form of jellyfish, bounce against the environment and thus create a fluorescent light that points the way. The goal is to reach safety, whether the jellyfish are collected or not is up to the player.




MY RESPONSIBILITY



As I was responsible for project management, it was particularly important for me to create a relaxed and productive working atmosphere despite Corona times. In the role of the game designer, I was responsible for bringing the atmosphere of the concept into the game. I was also responsible for vision keeping and guiding the team through the process, starting with a small core concept and building on it step by step. Furthermore, I was the contact for each department and therefore mediated and communicated a lot between art, programming and design.




Prototypes



Before the decision was made to play with the mechanics of light and shadow, the goal was to find something small enough and still fun to explore. Therefore, after some brainstorming sessions, prototypes were made to find exact core mechanic we wanted to build on.



Prototype 1 - Collect



Purpose of Prototype

The idea was to use magnetism as a starting point. I wanted to test, how it would feel collecting a lot of objects and then pushing them away.



Prototype 2 - Avoid



Purpose of the Prototype

Magnetism is still the starting point of this prototype, but with a focus on dodging the existing elements instead of gathering them around oneself.



Prototype 3 - Gameloop



Purpose of Prototype

The prototypes available so far have been detached from any goal or gameplay. Therefore, it was important to develop a suitable gameplay loop for the mechanics.



Prototype 4 - Light & Dark



Purpose of Prototype

The last prototype was the beginning of playing around with the alternation of light and dark. In this version it is already possible to push the jellyfish away from you in order to be able to generate more light.



Working on the Final Game



We decided to keep the collecting in some way, in form of the jellyfish that can be collected and buzz around the player.The dodging mechanic has been incorporated in the form of enemies that react to light surrounding the player. Further playtesting and iteration was done to capture the feeling of moving in the dark and the feeling of having a limited light resource available.



Team Pictures