Candace's Playground
An original game developed in a team of two for Fontys Game Design Specialization.
Story:
You wake up in an unfamiliar place as a child, you are unable remember where or who you are. The entrance blinds are fully closed and the lights are out. There is something lurking around the place.
Candace's Playground was the first advanced game I created. In this project, I was responsible for the Art Direction, Concept Art, 3D Models, Animation, Programming, and Level Design.
You can view the project repository and source code on Github
Scroll down below to view the progress of development.
Play the Game on Itch.io
Vaulting Mechanic
In this game, getting away from threats and escaping the facility is the player's primary objective. There are no means to fight back as the player embodies a mere child, the only option is running as possible. While running, the player needs to dodge and platform their way across hazards to escape.
The first mechanic to be implemented was a vaulting mechanic. Build on top of Unity's standard first person controller starter package. The vaulting is specifically designed to aid in difficult jumps and offer a level of forgiveness to the player.
As usually, platforming with lethal falls is better left out of a first-person based game.
Check out the vaulting mechanic source code here.
Sprinting Mechanic
Running away fits perfectly in a game where fighting the monsters roaming the playground is not an option. After making this game, I now understand why all horror games limit the sprint stamina of the player. It is a game design choice!
Adding stamina to the sprint already present in the first-person controller script was fairly easy. However, I struggled with some logic already present in the script. For example; the player could sprint while jumping, resulting in some high speed flight.
Check out the sprinting mechanic source code here.
Death Handler Script
There are many ways to get a game over in this game. The player can fall to their death. Get smashed by a swinging obstacle. Get caught by a ball pit monster and a nightmare clown.
With so many ways to go out I decided on creating a script specifically to handle all the ways of dying. There are methods that freeze all player inputs and can even ragdoll the player.
The lethal fall height is controlled by calculating the vertical downwards speed of the player capsule. If this speed exceeds the number in the public integer it will enter fatal territory.
Check out the death handler source code here.
Enemy AI
The game would be too easy if there were no enemies that attempt to catch the player. This is where the design of the enemies comes in.
Originally there were plans for 3 different enemy types, but due to time constraints only 2 of them made it into the game. The general design of the enemies was quickly drawn on a whiteboard.
Candace's AI:
Candace the clown will chase the player throughout the central area of the game. When the player is out of reach she will return to a patrolling state and wander.
This creates high tension within the player as when exploring objectives they are often out of the central area, losing track of her position.
Check out Candace's AI source code here.
The Ball Pit Monster's AI:
The ball pit monster will patrol it's habitat until the player falls into the ball pit. This causes the monster to be enraged and the player to lose speed and jump height caused by the ball pit.
After 5 seconds the monster will go three times as fast as normal to catch the player.
Check out the Ball Pit Monster's AI source code here.
Candace the Clown Art Pass
In order to make a scary game, you need to have a scary antagonist. Designing Candace the Clown was a fun process to flex my character design skills.
One requirement was to have the least amount of polygons as possible. Potentially mimicking PlayStation 2 era graphics slightly.
I have modelled and rigged her in Blender. The texture was made in Substance Painter using the PBR Metallic/Roughness workflow.
She was hand animated in Blender and contains 3 different animations: Idle, Patrolling, Chasing.
Ball Pit Monster Art Pass
Originally, it was speculated that the Ball Pit Monster was going to be a shark, or an eldrich horror.
However, due to time constraints, I decided to keep it simple to meet the deadline.
The idea general behavior of the Ball Pit Monster remained the same: patrol, chase, catch.
In Blender, I ran a fun physics simulation to create a pile of unnatural looking balls that represent the monster. What is worse than a creepy monster? A monster that is up for speculation.
