Creative Director / Level Designer
Punk Stereo
Custom Engine — PC
September 2017 - April 2018
Team of 11
Custom Engine — PC
September 2017 - April 2018
Team of 11
In this game, Player 2's controls are bound to NUMBER PAD keys and cannot be rebound.
This is due to the project submission guidelines for this student project which specified that all projects would be evaluated using school computers all of which had full-sized keyboards. Our second-year team failed to consider how this might affect the game's playability outside of that environment. Sorry about that.
This is due to the project submission guidelines for this student project which specified that all projects would be evaluated using school computers all of which had full-sized keyboards. Our second-year team failed to consider how this might affect the game's playability outside of that environment. Sorry about that.
Description
Punk Stereo is a 2-player, cooperative, puzzle-platformer about an adolescent punk duo trying to make it to their first ever live gig.
The game was heavily inspired by Cartoon Modern—a style of American cartoon animation from the 1950's—and movies like Edward Scissorhands that depict an idealized, cookie-cutter, American suburb setting. Each player controls one of the two main characters: Sky (drummer) and Jay (guitarist, vocalist). Together, the two must use their unique abilities to traverse and manipulate the world to make it to their gig on time.
The game was heavily inspired by Cartoon Modern—a style of American cartoon animation from the 1950's—and movies like Edward Scissorhands that depict an idealized, cookie-cutter, American suburb setting. Each player controls one of the two main characters: Sky (drummer) and Jay (guitarist, vocalist). Together, the two must use their unique abilities to traverse and manipulate the world to make it to their gig on time.
I spent half of the project's lifespan as the project's level designer and the other half as the project's Creative Director. As creative director, I was in charge of crafting a clear creative vision for the project to help maintain a consistent style and theme across our large student team. My main responsibilities were to bridge the gap between the creative and technical disciplines on the team as well as designing and testing levels for the game. Our art team consisted of four 2D artists who met weekly with myself to collaborate on environment art, level design, and to discuss the status of our art pipeline.
Punk Stereo's art team and I met weekly to discuss asset progress and cross communicate between departments. One of our major accomplishments was the adoption of a robust playtest pipeline. User research was at the forefront of our design process on this project. New art and design assets were paused right before implementation so they could undergo user testing. For design assets, this often meant paper play tests of puzzles and new mechanics. For art assets, we tested new assets at multiple steps along the art pipeline. An example of this is our two main characters who underwent three stages of testing.
Prototyping
Our pre-production phase was comprised mostly of rapid prototyping and mechanics design. We created three prototype projects in Unity during pre-production all of which contributed to our final design which was implemented in our custom engine. I used Unity to prototype our character movement mechanics, combat mechanics (deprecated), group control mechanics (deprecated), and our camera behavior.
I learned a great deal about rapid prototyping skills during our pre-production phase, and learned to collaborate closely with the programmers who were implementing our prototype designs.
I learned a great deal about rapid prototyping skills during our pre-production phase, and learned to collaborate closely with the programmers who were implementing our prototype designs.
Prototype 1 — Group Mechanics
This early prototype of Punk Stereo was a single-player experience where players commanded a whole band of players instead of just two. Players controlled one of four band members at a time. The rest of the band followed the controlled 'point character' around the screen a la Sonic Heroes. The objective was similar to the final game—traverse obstacles, solve puzzles, combat enemies, and arrive at the band's first gig in time.
The major challenge with this version of the game was its scope. Our art team simply could not manage four main characters in the amount of time we had, so the prototype was scrapped. We liked the idea of swapping point characters around, and we figured we could solve the technical challenge of getting the unselected characters to follow the point character smoothly. We would continue experimenting with this idea more in future prototypes.
The major challenge with this version of the game was its scope. Our art team simply could not manage four main characters in the amount of time we had, so the prototype was scrapped. We liked the idea of swapping point characters around, and we figured we could solve the technical challenge of getting the unselected characters to follow the point character smoothly. We would continue experimenting with this idea more in future prototypes.
Prototype 2 — Combat Mechanics
Prototype 2 experimented with different 2D combat mechanics. Though we would later switch to a purely puzzle game, prototypes 2 and 3 focused on combat and enemy design. In this version of the game, the player controlled one of two characters, only one of which was on screen at a time. When players pressed the 'swap' button, the characters tagged out. Each character had a unique movement and combat moveset that made them suitable to fight certain kinds of enemies. Enemies now had shields to combat melee attacks and ranged attacks to engage the player from a distance. The player characters were a mix of movement abilities, ranged attacks, and melee attacks. These movesets would be expanded on in the next prototypes.
This prototype was seen as mostly successful at exploring simple combat mechanics and enemy designs, however it still had its issues. While it was more limited in scope thanks to the reduced band roster, we traded main characters for enemy characters. This would later be the reason why we switched to a purely puzzle experience.
This prototype was seen as mostly successful at exploring simple combat mechanics and enemy designs, however it still had its issues. While it was more limited in scope thanks to the reduced band roster, we traded main characters for enemy characters. This would later be the reason why we switched to a purely puzzle experience.
Prototype 3 — Advanced Switching and Combat
In prototype 3, we expanded the character movesets to two abilities each. In this prototype, one character was focused on offensive abilities and the second was focused on defensive abilities. This prototype relied more heavily on the switching mechanic and proved that, with some diverse enemy design, could be really fun. Where previous prototypes were possible to complete with only one character, this prototype forced the player to play more tactically.
Ultimately, the decision to change the game to a puzzle game stopped this concept from developing any further. Given more time or a larger art team, I believe this idea had potential, though it needed much more development.
Ultimately, the decision to change the game to a puzzle game stopped this concept from developing any further. Given more time or a larger art team, I believe this idea had potential, though it needed much more development.
Level Design
Level design on Punk Stereo was done in a combination of Unity3D and paper. Prototypes were made first on paper. Some playtests were conducted using paper levels and player cut-outs, but once we had a functional Unity prototype, levels were recreated in Unity before testing for ease of use. Finally, levels were implemented by the tech and design teams in our custom engine.
Our custom engine originally used Tiled—a third-party level editor—but we later switched to a dedicated in-engine, component-based editor.
Our custom engine originally used Tiled—a third-party level editor—but we later switched to a dedicated in-engine, component-based editor.
User Research
Punk Stereo was developed with a specific audience in mind. It was casual, cooperative, and inclusive. To help the team talk about our audience more concretely, we created two psychographic profiles—Marcos and Marry--that represented the target audience of our project. Whenever there was a tough design decision that needed to be made, we chose whatever we felt like Marcos and Marry would choose.
The first set of tests we conducted for Sky and Jay were done with silhouettes. These tests helped nail down the shape language of our all our characters. Testers were given a description of the character being depicted and shown a collection of silhouettes. Testers were asked to choose the silhouette that best matched the character as well as describe what about the character felt wrong or right given the character's bio. |
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The second set of tests conducted for Sky and Jay were value studies of our most promising silhouettes. These concepts had more detail to them, but the process they went through for testing was the same. These tests informed us about how much detail our characters could have. For these tests, the character designs were printed at the size they would appear on screen.
Aspects of the most liked designs from previous tests were combined together and refined to form the final designs for Sky and Jay. The last set of these set of tests these designs were subjected to was a color palette test (see below). Like before, testers were asked to choose and describe the designs they liked and disliked the most.
Aspects of the most liked designs from previous tests were combined together and refined to form the final designs for Sky and Jay. The last set of these set of tests these designs were subjected to was a color palette test (see below). Like before, testers were asked to choose and describe the designs they liked and disliked the most.