High Concept
Lost Adventures is an adventure puzzle game where the player starts in a room resembling a science lab. Then, the player suddenly mixes two formulas that allow the player to grow and shrink.
The player’s primary goal is to collect eight creatures that have escaped the lab’s containment area. Upon collecting all of these creatures, the player will win the game, but be careful spending more than five minutes searching the lab will result in a defeat.
Roles
Producer, Systems Designer, UI Designer, Audio Designer, Level Designer (The Land of The Small and The Large)
Responsibilities
- Scheduling and Prioritizing Resources
- Design and Develop Gameplay Mechanics
- Design and Develop UI Systems
- Design Audio for Background Music
- QA Testing
- Weekly Reporting
Tools
Unreal Engine, Maya, Photoshop, Fruity Loops
GDMS Project
Eight Missing Creatures
Inspirational References
- Honey, I Strunk the Kids, Directed by Joe Johnston
- Honey, I Blew Up the Kids, Directed by Randal Kleiser
Objective of the Game
- Collect the eight missing creatures before the timer runs out.
- Timer is set to 5 minutes
Wolf Spider
Wasp
Scorpion
Mantis
Demon
Blob
Black Widow
Ant
What Went Right
Project planning went exceptionally well. We spent much time in pre-production organizing our thoughts into one collective effort. All of our mechanics came out as we described and envisioned them.
Everyone on the team had a chance to contribute different mechanics to the game, and the mechanics that we decided to keep in our final product complemented each other to give the gameplay experience a well-balanced feel.
The team was highly motivated and eager to accept feedback and make changes to the project as needed throughout production. Our determination to achieve a more finished look on our game helped keep us focused on the end goal throughout the production cycle.
Meeting regularly as a team and having good, open communication helped many of us promptly facilitate and handle changes throughout production. Everyone had many great ideas, and combining them into a cohesive whole went smoothly.
What Went Wrong
Not all mechanics worked as intended individually or combined with other mechanics we had planned, such as the push block mechanic and the wall jump mechanic. Both ended up cut from the project due to not blending in well enough with the core features of the gameplay.
The Push Block mechanic was the first mechanic created, and it worked very well; however, when building out the level, this mechanic did not get used due to not fitting in with the flow of the levels and the player character.
The Wall Jump mechanic was created and worked fine; however, in developing the level design and factoring in the other vertical traversing mechanics we currently had, such as the Parkour and Grapple Hook mechanics, this mechanic was overlooked and not utilized.
Our test plan for our final build was not 100% pass. Some of the tests returned failures, which would need to be addressed later if we choose to resume production on this game.
Conclusion
The game turned out well, and the intended audience greatly appreciated its mechanics and aesthetics. The game’s flow felt very smooth, and the level gave the player ample enough activities to spend time.
Ideally, if we had more time to create larger levels, additional mechanics could have been better blended in to achieve additional goals within the project. However, lacking those mechanics does not break the immersive experience we set out to portray.