Artist Statement:
Intention:
For my fourth artwork, I was inspired by games like Celeste that merged the gameplay of platformers with messages about life and its many struggles. As a result, I aimed to make a simple and abstract platformer about the experience of making important and meaningful choices in life while being uncertain about the future. I wanted to replicate how I have often felt in my life when I have to make certain choices that deeply affect my future and how I get overwhelmed by the many challenges I may face from those choices.
Original Idea and Playtest:
At first, I wanted to create this experience by having the player play from the perspective of someone dreaming. In a dream, the player character must explore a level filled with obstacles and reach its end in order to wake up and start the next day. After the day is over, the player dreams again and the entire level is changed. This would have continued on for each day forever. This was supposed to represent a person whose goals in life are constantly changing from day to day, as they are uncertain about how they want to live and what they want their life to be like in the future. I planned to achieve this experience by possibly using random generation similar to simple roguelikes like Downwell. However, during my first playtest as I was explaining my idea, someone pointed out how if I were to continue with my plan, I would not be including one of the core aspects of the experience that I wanted to create: choice. My original game didn’t involve the players making a choice, as it only involved them blindly following what the game tells them. Once I realized this mistake, I knew I had to change my idea. This led to the final iteration of my project.
Final Iteration:
The final game involves the aspects that create the experience of making an important choice:
Choosing between options – At the start of the game, the player is picking between two doors that lead to two types of levels, one being platforming levels and the other being combat levels. This is supposed to represent how many times in life you reach a point where you have to choose between a number of options, such as picking a career to pursue and choosing a college to go to. Additionally, I added a little hint, such as having to jump on a platform and having to kill an enemy about what each of the doors represents without explicitly telling the player. This is supposed to show how in life you have little knowledge about each choice you have to make, but you never know exactly how those choices will affect your future until you actually choose them.
Continuing forward or going back – Once you make a choice in the game you must then take on challenges that increase in difficulty as you go on. In order to move to the next challenge, you must make it to the rightmost door. However, you can always choose to go back if you find the challenges too hard, but doing so will send you to the beginning of the game. This represents how in life once you make certain choices, you endure struggles and challenges that relate to that choice without knowing what’s going to come next. If you find the challenges too hard you can often choose to undo your choice, but doing so will set you back in an aspect of your life. These aspects combine to create the experience of making a choice.
Player Controls:
Move – left and right with WASD or Arrow Keys
Jump – Space
Ground Dash – press Shift on the ground, jump while dashing to do a long jump
Air Dash – press Shift in the air
wall jump – Space while sliding on the wall
attack – press R to kill enemies
Enemies:
enemies die in one hit, if the player touches an enemy, they die and restart the level
enemy 1 – move back and forth
enemy 2 – slowly follows the player
spikes:
if the player touches the spikes, they die and restart the level
Pictures:
Starting Level
Platforming Level 1
Combat Level 1
Platforming Level 2
Combat Level 2
Platforming Level 3
Combat Level 3
Win Screen
Reflection:
Overall I say that my project was a success in creating the feelings that I wanted. Some things I could definitely work on in this game are the enemy sprites and how I balanced the difficulty, but I feel like I did pretty well with the time and experience that I had. In fact, I feel like I can take what I have done so far and turn it into a fleshed out game about overcoming challenges without knowing what will come next, which could be a great message to experience for people who are going through the same things I am and a great addition to my portfolio. I loved working on this project, as it gave me a chance to really try unity for the first time and see how it works. It also gave me a chance to work on my skills in level design, enemy design, and player mechanics. I really enjoyed this class and I can’t wait to take what I learned and use it to help me in the future!
Assets Used: