[o]
OVERVIEW
[o] (pronounced “Oh”) is a 3D ball rolling, adventure game, set in an abstract world and visually enhanced through a minimalist art style. Players strive to rid corruption from their surroundings by traversing dangerous and beautiful environments in order to stabilize the collapsing world. [o] drives the player to question the meaning of their actions as well as experience the hero¹s journey through visual representations and unique level design. [o] supports Xbox Controllers and is available for PC.
Role: Systems Designer
Date: January 2014 – May 2014
Platform: PC
Engine: Unity 3D v.3.4
TEAM MEMBERS
Reid Flamm – Systems Designer
Marc Loiselle – Systems Designer
Connor Fullerton – Level Designer
Paden Hall – Level Designer
Alex Martens – Programmer
Corbin Percy – Programmer
Taber Noble – Artist
Zach Agostine – Producer
AWARDS
Game of the Year at Champlain College, 2014
Excellence in Game Design at Champlain College, 2014
GAME DOWNLOAD
Game
DESIGN DOCUMENTS
These are example one-page design documents pulled from our main design document. They were pulled out to show a simple demonstration of a few of the mechanics that I worked on for [o].
WHAT I DID
During the development of [o], my role was: System Designer.
My main focus on the project was developing different systems for the level designers to implement, and help balance the already existing mechanics.
Specifically, I helped create: the AI Swarm behavior, the Rollover Tile Puzzle system, the Lift iTween system, the Title Screen system, and various basic physical obstacles.
For the AI Swarm behavior, I wanted to have a challenge for the player that changed dynamically as the player progressed through a level. As a result, I created a basic behavior for a creature that, upon waking up from the player traversing near its position, charges towards the enemy’s position and attempts to knock them off the stage. There are two forms to said behavior, with one dying upon impact with the player, and the other being a constant force that continues to try and mess with the player’s movement. This system was setup so the level designers could implement them into their levels in swarms, creating a very pleasing visual effect, and forcing the player to make constant dynamic choices regarding where they must go next due to the constant attacks from the swarm.
The Rollover Tile Puzzle system was developed to create a logic element to the game instead of being generally physical challenge-based. As demonstrated in the video below, the tile puzzle system has gone through multiple iterations. The first iteration was a tile flipping system. This worked by having all the tiles start out one color, then upon the player touching a tile, it changes to a new one. However, if the player manged to touch the same tile again, it would change back to its original color. The idea behind this is that it would cause the player to think about the route they had to take to get through the puzzle so they wouldn’t run over previously hit tiles. After implementing this system, however, it became apparent that the puzzles were slowing down the pace of the game a lot, causing frustration for some players. Because of this, we removed the tile flipping system, and made it more objective oriented where the player has to find these tiles through an obstacle-filled zone in order to unlock a gate and move on to the next area.
The Lift iTween system was created to help the player move to different vertical areas. This system works by linking up the lift to corruption cubes in the vicinity. Once the player hits said corruption cubes, the lift appears. Once the player goes into the lift, it uses the iTween system to lift them to a new vertical level.
For the Title Screen, I used the iTween system to create a zoom feature for the camera to zoom onto the title name. Upon pressing the start button, the camera zooms onto a cube with images of the different levels on each face. The player can then rotate the cube to select which level they want to enter.