Game Name: Skyknife Production Cycle: Spring 2013 Group Size: 6
Team Members:
Matt Surdej,Connor Fullerton, Sean McFarlane-Designer
Melissa Gill- Programmer
Taber Noble- Artist
Ian Giovannetti – Producer
For my Production II game, I collaborated with five other people to create a co-operative action game. Players joined two other people in piloting and manning the guns of a large zeppelin, while trying to shoot down enemy aircraft. In making this game, I was inspired by games like Artemis and Guns of Icarus, who use teamwork to solve problems and overcome obstacles.
LEVEL DESIGN:
I handled a variety of jobs on the team, including designing encounters, balancing enemies, and working together with the other designers on the team. For the encounters, I was tasked with handling the first two levels, which included the tutorial. For the tutorial, I wanted to give the driving player a large space to move around in as they got a feel for the controls, while having the players on the cannons engage and learn the roles of combat. In order to accomplish this, I put the first group of enemies close to the starting position, that way the driving player can move towards the enemy zeppelins, while the players manning the cannons have a chance to figure out how far their guns can shoot, and give the players using the cannons the opportunity to communicate with their driver to get a better shot.
ENEMY DESIGN:
For enemy design, I worked with one of the other designers to create the different types of enemies. Originally, we had the idea of many different types of enemies, such as planes, helicopters, and anti air guns. Enemy zeppelins would only be used as a larger enemy. However, when we tested the game, we found that players had a lot of difficulty hitting the small plane enemies we had put in their. We tried a number of different fixes, but eventually we decided to cut the planes and focus more on zeppelins for our enemies.
NARRATIVE:
I also collaborated with the other designers to create a narrative. We each created a pitch for the game, then refined them into a single idea. From these ideas, we created the characters who would man the zeppelin. Then, we wrote narrative for each of the levels we were working on. In addition to the two levels I wrote, I also edited the scripts of the other two designers before we recorded the voices.
SkyKnife Narrative Tutorial-Narrative for the first level , the tutorial, of Skyknife
SkyKnife Narrative Level 1-Narrative for the first actual level of Skyknife
POSTMORTEM:
All in all, I enjoyed working on this project. Working with several other designers helped to lighten the load of work, allowing for each of us to have our own pieces of the game to work on. However, we used each other as both a springboard for ideas, and as revisers to hone our ideas. We worked together with our programmer, producer and artist to create a game we could be proud of. While we ran into a few problems, both technically and design wise, my team was able to combat these challenges, and created a game we enjoyed working on.