2.5D PUZZLE PLATFORM GAME,...

Studio 1, Sem 01 2018 MAGI – Master of Animation, Games, and Interactivity, RMIT University

Jiayi ShaoMasters of Animation, Games and Interactivity (MAGI),School of Design,RMIT University,Melbourne, [email protected]

Abstract A puzzle-platform game is a specific genre of video games that focus on solving puzzles to progress to the next level. I will present such an analysis for some Puzzle-platform video games, including story, genre and art form. Then, I will use these analyses to draft the narrative and flowchart of my story and design the characters concept background concept.

The story is about a water fairy wakes up on a branch of white dead coral. It doesn’t know what happens to its home where used to be a colorful undersea with beauti-ful corals and various creatures. It has to leave the cave and start a journey to find out what destroyed the under-sea environment. It set off from a cave, adventures in a shipwreck, escapes from a giant octopus and climb on an anchor that transport it to human habitat. In human habitat, the fairy goes through the coast and estuary and enters into a sewer system of a factory. Finally, it jumps into the effluent and devotes itself to purify the water. However, its sacrifice is still too weak to clean the whole water.

KeywordsGame concept design, Character disign, Lanscape de-sign, Game level design, Fluid simulation

Explore underwater art concept and fluid simulation in 3D software and Unity

2.5D PUZZLE PLATFORM GAME, PURIFY


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MEETING 1: IDEAS

My practice

I have participated in a wide range of practice and projects that includes various sketching, painting, digital illustration especially in character design and environment design, modeling and sculpt-ing in 3D software and a few visual effects that made by After Effects and Nuke. I’ve also made a couple of short animations and direct short films.

I’ve drawn many sketches, including body struc-tures, dynamic poses, and landscape. The practice helps me build the foundation of character anima-tion. I am also interested in character and envi-ronment design. I believe that everything in the scene, no matter a character or environment is tell-ing a story. It must have the reason why it exists, why it looks like this. Also, why it is in this color, not others. The feature is kind of narratives. So, whenever I drawing a concept or thinking a story, I always keep asking those questions.

Reviewing these projects I did undergraduate, I found I never did any thing relates to games. Admittedly, I am a big fan of games, especially puzzle-solving game, so I want to explore more about game design. What I want exam is the art concept and level design. And because I am totally new to this area, I will learn some tech-niques about developing game level and coding in folio 2. In folio 1, I will draft the narrative and flowchart of my own story, and exam the art form which will help me design the main characters and environments. And hopefully, I will devepe a simple game in Unity.


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My interest and Moodboard

I am interested in puzzle-platform games, especially 2.5D plat-form games that use the polygonal graphics to render the charac-ters and/or the background, but the gameplays are restricted to a 2D plane.

Inside (2016) is a 2.5D puzzle-platform side-scrolling game made by Playdead. The player controls a boy to adventure an unrealistic world, and solves the puzzles that based on physics system or the rigid gameplay mechanics. The developers build the game’s puzzles without any literate tutor, players need to try or fail again and again in order to find the correct solution. The color in the game is pale and depressed. In most cases, the game is silent, the sounds only from the environment that could be clues to solve the puzzle.

Limbo (2010) is a 2.5D puzzle-platform game also made by Playdead. The art form of this game is compelling. By present-ing in black and white tones, using lighting from the back to set off the character who is a boy in black. Similarly to Inside, the developers build the game’s puzzles without any literate tuto-rial. The game focuses on logical and conceptual challenges that base on rigid physics system. There are minimal ambient sounds as clues to suggest the players. One of my favorite scenes is a completely dark environment that the play only can rely on the sound from the background and previous experience to avoid the obstacles. In terms of its story, the players may find some detail during the progress that reveals the ending. The open-ended work also has some deep meanings.

Oat the Goat (2018) is an interactive, online storyboard for 4-7-year-olds children to help them learn about the power of kindness, empathy and acceptance and tolerance (New Zealand’s Ministry of Education). The art form is 3D rendering characters with delightful 2D environments.


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MEETING 2: ASPIRATION

OverviewA water fairy wakes up on a branch of white dead coral. It doesn’t know what happens to its home where used to be a colorful undersea with beautiful corals and various creatures. It has to leave the cave and start a journey to find out what destroyed the undersea environment. It set off from a cave, adventures in a shipwreck, es-capes from a giant octopus and climb on an anchor that transport it to human habitat. In human habitat, the fairy passes through the coast and estuary and enters into a sewer system of a factory. Finally, it jumps into the ef-fluent and devotes itself to purify the water. However, its power is not strong enough to clean the whole water.

InspirationThe inspiration of this game story is from my trip to Fiji islands. I snorkeled in the sea and saw that the coral seemed like lose their color, which I haven’t expected. I feel very sad about that. Then, I did some research about what I saw. This phenomenon is coral bleaching. As Figure 2.1 shows, coral bleaching is the whitening of a coral colony that occurs when coral polyps expel symbiotic algal cells to respond to abnormal water temperatures (Park & Allaby 2017). In other words, the coral bleaching response to the human pollution. So I came up with an idea about reflecting the pollution. The player plays a role as an undersea creature.

The first idea of gameplay mechanics is from the game that I played before. In most cases, the players die if they fall into the water. If I convert this mechanic into the player only survive in the water, the puzzle could be that the player has to stay on the land in a few seconds. But then, I found it’s hard to achieve, because I even was unfamiliar with basic puzzle design. So, I start to do the research on about game level design.

Determining the challenge mechanicsByren (2005) states after we have a story, a character, an environment, we need to create the challenges in the level. The goal in the majority of the games are the same — reach and exit. like the seesaw in the figure, we need to consider a relatively logi-cal solution for the player to reach the exit. “It would be the player jump on the high part of the seesaw and wait as the opposite weight flies up and comes smashing down” (Byren 2015).

This is a foundational concept that allows me to think about my puzzle. “The player could complete the challenge by simply interacting with it and observing the results” (Byren 2015).


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Game map

The underwater stage is a deep-sea area. The player can control the fairy until it wakes up on a large scales of dead coral. Then, the player needs to escape a dropping rotten branch from a tree-like coral. After that, the player waits for a fumarole pops up bubbles that blow jel-lyfish’s tentacles up, covers the branch on a black smoker that erupts toxic gas, escapes from an ugly giant octopus that occupies a medieval shipwreck, enters into a shipwreck and find the key to open the door, attracts a moray eel that hides behind a heap of trea-sures to crush through the ceiling crack, hides behind a box to escape from the octopus and catch aboard an anchor to go over a submarine volcano.


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Explanation

The white boxes are the objects or the environment that the player sees.

The blue boxes are the ac-tions that the player inter-acts with the objects.

The red boxes lead to the dead endings.

The yellow boxes are the extra points that lead to the true ending if the player gathers all of them.

Each block can be the single level that apart from the others.

Some solutions in the level behind are based on the previous experience that the player gains from the level he overcomes.


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MEETING 3: TESTING

Maya Bifrost Fluid SimulaitonDue to the game environment relates to liquid, I try to do some test about fluid simulation. In addition, I am also quite interested in this field. I test the Bifrost Fluid Simulation in Maya. I haven’t used this plug-in before, so I have to start with the very basic tutorial.

First, I test the liquid on a slope that simulates the wave on a beach. The test helps me familiar with the basic operation of the Bifrost. For example, how to create a liquid, how to create a collider that is a container, how to build test the velocity.

Then, I watch the tutorial about how to create a fountain. I think probably I can let the water float up into a sphere and doesn’t drop. So, I start to test my idea. However, I meet a heap of problems. First, the fountain in the tutorial has the gravity, so that the water drops into the collider. If I want to shape the water in the air, I need to set the gravity to 0. So, how to raise the water? Then, I find the solution that the motion field can create the gravity towards up. However, the particles go up but don’t stay in the sphere collider I create in the air. It takes me a long while to solve it. The solution is to add the friction of the collider to restrict the particles. At the same time, I need to adjust the velocity of the particles and the strength of the gravity. Finally, as the figure on the left, I float the water up into a sphere.

The reason why I stop doing thisAfter doing these test, I realized that the effects in game design software different from Maya. Jadd told Unity has the specific water simulation that for the designer to create the water-like environment. So I decide to stop working on the Bifrost Fluid Simulation in Maya. But the tests I did still helps me to figure out the movement of the water. I appreciate that, although it took me a bunch of time on calculating the simulation and cashing it, even I haven’t start rendering.


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The long tentacles of jellyfish could be a good trap. They could block a scale of area that impede players progress. They are flexible but also toxic. The jellyfish I design in the game occupies the only way must be passed. A fumarole pops up the current that blows the jellyfish’s tentacles up intermittently. The player has to find time to pass through these tentacles. But the technical problem is how to the control the multiple tentacles in the game.

I design the octopus as a giant enemy. The octopus is covered with mange on its whole body and hides in a shipwreck and emerges when the fairy explores the shipwreck. But it has the same technical problem with the jellyfish.

Moodboard and reference

Giant moray eels inhabit in the cracks between the coral to pray the fish. They also can be a good trap that hide behind the coral and track the player

The coral is a vital component of undersea background and interac-tive objects. Usually, coral is colorful. However, due to the pollution, coral is dying. Coral bleaching is the whitening of a coral colony that occurs when coral polyps expel symbiotic algal cells to respond to abnormal water temperatures (Park & Allaby 2017). I’m trying to use white coral imply the polluted environment.

Another important obstacle is a black smoker, which is a hot hy-drothermal fluid in the deep ocean when the underwater volcanoes activate (NOAA 2018). The Hydrothermal vent has two type. One is popping up bubbles which is safe, and the other is erupts black smoker which is fatal.


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Moodboard of Character

Waterfairy and Merman

CharacterWhen I designed the character, I had a specific direction that it was a creature live under the water, a water fairy. So I can refer to the outline or structure of merman that has a fish-like tail because this structure is more reasonable to move in the water. The skeletons of the merman are quite useful. It helps me to figure out the movement of my character.


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Charater concept design

After I had the outline of the character, I draw some drafts and explore the texture. I illustrate that the material of its body is water, and the hair likes a wave. Then, I add more details about its texture, like bubbles and foam.

I think I may need more tests on its color. The test should base on the environment design in order to distinguish the character from the environments.

However I’m now trying to simplifies the charac-ter. Probably, it will be just like a droplet if I put it into the Unity to make some tests.


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Moodboard of underwater background


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Backgroung concept designI test the colors of the background. The first version is light blue. I refer to the colors that show in the mood-board. But then I think the color is too bright. Because the character is like a light blue. If I put the character into the background, it is hard to distin-guish them.

After I looked back to the story and I try the background color in the gra-dient. It looks better. The dark blue reveals under the deep ocean that little light can pass through. The shallow ocean is light blue. When it moves to the human habitat, the background color gradual shifts to gray, which implies the industrial pollution.


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References1. Adams, E 2014, ‘Mechanisms for Advancing the Plot’,

Fundamentals of game design,2nd edn, Person Education, Berkeley, USA.

2. Byrne, E 2005, Game level design, Hingham, Charles River Media, US.

3. Chenell, D 2016, The Water Bear, webpages, viewed 23 July 2018, <http://thewaterbear.com/page/2/>.

4. Gilland, J 2009, Elemental Magic: The Art of Special Ef-fects Animation, Focal Press, Boston, USA.

5. Lutz, R 2018, Wireless Camping, webpages, viewed 23 July 2018, <http://www.romina-lutz.at>.

6. National Geographic 2010, National Geographic, National Geographic Society, USA.

7. New Zealand’s Ministry of Education 2018, interactive storyboard, Oat the Goat, viewed 13 August 2018, NZ, <http://www.otitenanekoti.co.nz>.

8. New Zealand’s Ministry of Education 2018, interactive storyboard, Oat the Goat, viewed 13 August 2018, NZ, <https://www.bullyingfree.nz/parents-and-whanau/oat-the-goat/>.

9. NOAA 2018, ‘what is a hydrothermal vent?’, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 25 June, viewed 15 August 2018, <https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html>.

10. Park, C & Allaby, M 2017, ‘Coral bleaching’, A Diction-ary of Environment and Conservation, Oxford University Press, USA.

11. Playdead 2010, video game, Limbo, Playdead, Microsoft Game Studios, directed by Arnt Jensen.

12. Playdead Studio 2016, video game, Inside, Playdead, directed by Arnt Jensen.

13. Thabet, T 2015, Video Game Narrative and Criticism: Playing the Story, Palgrave macmillan, USA.

14. World News 2018, Magnificent merger forms in east China when Yellow River meets sea, YouTuBe, 12 July, viewed 31July 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=51dEWmX4MzU>.

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