Games Development - Project 2

 

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• Game Assets
• Detailed Proposal

Games Development - Project 2

For this project, we were tasked with creating the visual game assets for our game, including the character, landscape, collectibles, enemies, and traps. I created all the assets by hand-drawing in Procreate. Initially, I planned to create some animations directly in Unity, but due to technical issues, I couldn't make it work. So, I drew most of the sprites frame by frame myself. The animations don’t look entirely smooth when watching them close, but they fit well when scaled down and placed in the game scene. I will make further adjustments to enhance the player experience. Here is a list of assets I have completed:

• Character - Idle, Run, Jump, Attack, Injury
• Monsters - Slime, Bat, Ghost, The Darkness
• Measurable - Health, Mana, Monsters
• Collectibles - Health, Mana, Crystal
• Landscape - Chapter 1 (Missing Memories), Chapter 2 (Lost Stars), Chapter 3 (Abyss of Darkness) 

P.S.: Blogspot lowered my GIF quality! It shouldn’t be pixelated at the edges, and the colours are slightly darker. Please click on the GIF for better quality. :3

Character

The main character is Luna, a magical girl who embarks on a journey to rescue her friend Astra from the Darkness. Since the character in the game will be scaled down, the design will be as simple as shown. Below, I have attached sketches of Luna’s character design, both before and after her transformation, along with the weapons she uses throughout her journey, followed by her in-game animations.

Luna's Character Design

Luna's Idle

Luna's Run

Luna's Jump

Luna's Short-range Attack

Luna's Magical Arrow

Luna's Mana-charged Ball

Luna's Injury

Luna's Death

Monster

The difficulty of the monsters increases from slime, bat, ghost, and finally the Darkness as the final boss. The first chapter will feature only slimes, which jump and attack the player. In the second chapter, bats will be added which will fly toward the player to attack. In the third chapter, ghosts will spawn, also flying toward and attacking the player but with greater damage. The final boss, the Darkness, has long-range attacks and the ability to spawn monsters to disrupt the player.

Slime's Idle / Bouncy

Slime's Injury

Slime's Death

Bat's Idle / Flying

Bat's Injury

Bat's Death

Ghost's Idle / Float

Ghost's Injury

Ghost's Death

The Darkness' Idle

The Darkness' Attack

The Darkness' Injury

The Darkness' Death

Measurables

The measurable attributes are health, mana, and monsters. The player starts with maximum health, which decreases when attacked by monsters and increases when health collectibles are collected. Mana starts at zero and increases by collecting mana gained from defeating monsters but decreases when using mana-charged energy balls. The monster bar starts at zero in each level and fills as the player defeats monsters. Once it’s full, the player can proceed to the next level.

Measurables: Health, Mana, Monster

Collectibles

The collectibles in this game include health, which will spawn in random places; mana, which will drop from defeating monsters; and crystals, which need to be collected to unlock the next level.

Collectibles: Health, Mana, Crystal

Landscape

The landscape comprises four different themes for each level: Chapter 1 - Missing Memories, Chapter 2 - Lost Stars, Chapter 3 - Abyss of Darkness. Each level has a unique environment that tells a different story. Click here for higher resolution image.

Chapter 1 - Missing Memories

Chapter 2 - Lost Stars

Chapter 3 - Abyss of Darkness

Here is the scale of each element in the game scene, set to a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Scale

Detailed Proposal

Followed by the previous proposal, I have updated my proposal by adding every detail of each stage, monster and attacks. Below is my updated proposal.

Proposal

Presentation Video

Reflection

Creating all the game assets within a limited time is challenging, especially the animations. Personally, I feel the animations still have room for improvement, as I drew them frame by frame, which can make them look a bit glitchy when zoomed in. If I had more time, I would like to improve the animations by using bones in Unity. I have tried using bones several times, but it has not worked out yet. However, I am definitely interested in exploring this feature further in Unity. I also plan to add effects to the player and the Darkness to enhance the player experience.

Apart from animation, the ideation process for creating different environments for each level is also quite challenging. Since I want the environments to connect to the game’s story, I try to blend them together while also making the landscapes beautiful and visually appealing.

It takes a lot to make a game. I hope all the time I have spent on this game will pay off. The game assets are acceptable for now, but I’d love to improve them if time permits. For now, I’ll be focusing more on the prototype.