Project Overview
Dungeon Trawl, Aw Man is a top-down Action/Adventure game. The game takes place in a Storm Temple where the player would fight monsters and solve puzzles as they work further into the dungeon and narrative. My team and I worked on this for about seven weeks amid the COVID-19 pandemic. I designed the game’s dungeon and game mechanisms. I also scripted the player character, implemented pickups, and other dungeon elements. We used Azure DevOps and the Agile development method to iterate tasks each week.
Design Goals
- Top-Down Zelda Style Gameplay with 2D Sprites in a 3D Environment
- Action System with a Variety of Weapons and Attacks
- Different Enemy Architypes with Unique Designs, Movement Patterns, and Attacks
- Dramatic Player Experience with Mystery Presented Through the Atmosphere and Gameplay
- Unclear Critical Path to Encourage Exploration and Later Invoke Mastery After Repeated Playthroughs
- Different Sets of Landscapes and Environmental Props
- Modular Programming and Assets to Allow for Rapid Prototyping
Post-Breakdown
This project started smoothly, but as the weeks progressed we fully transitioned over from frequent in-person meetings to weekly online meetings. The most difficult task in all this was keeping everyone focused and motivated. To remedy our situation, the team and I frequently communicated outside of the weekly meetings to discuss our progress on each of our duties. By the end of our project, I became proficient in relaying information to my team such as explaining models or sprite issues to my teammates. My main job during this project was to design the dungeon and game mechanics. I developed the dungeon map with many rough drafts, but in doing so I learned how to display the information concisely without leaving important points off.
One of the core goals of the project was to keep all the programming and assets of the game modular, so we could rapidly prototype and develop the dungeon. To achieve this, I broke down and simplified each part of the dungeon into its core elements. For example, each room in the dungeon would need a doorway, so the player would be able to travel across rooms. There would need to be a different type of doors as some rooms would need a key, require enemies to be defeated, or just be permanently closed. Rather than have four different door objects, I decided to create one door that would have parameters when set would act in an intended manner. The resulting door object has functionality for five different door types and can be edited in the future to add more. Later into development, I implemented the same type of system into the game’s pickups. In the future, I will work on continuing to improve modularity in my projects such as by creating structs with them. I believe modular systems simplify development in the long run even though they may take a little more work initially.
