SaveGame

Summary

SaveGame is a wave-based space shooter. The point of the game is that the player is a memeber in our group. The group accidentily corrupts a project they are working on, and it is up to the player to jump into cyberspace and delete the corruption by shooting it in a virtual spacecraft, before it reached the project, represented by a giant brain.

We were heavily inspired by Tron and the neon-crazy 80’s for the artstyle, for the level design we looked at the space shooter EverSpace and Hero Line Wars, a custom map for Warcraft 3. What we took from what, I will go through in the next section.

This project was the first 3D-game we’ve made in a group-project, and this group was the one we had for the entierty of our second year at TGA. We level designers decided to take a step back, to let the programmers have a easier time to get accustomed to working with a whole new dimension.

Specifications

• Space Shooter
• Created in 10 weeks half-time

My Contributions

• Level Design
• Game Design
• Enemy Balancing
• Control Balancing
• Playtesting

Design Philosophy

We played a lot of EverSpace to imitate their controls and combat-feel. We wanted the game to feel as close to that game as possible. EverSpace has a smooth arcade-feel in its controls. Because the programers had a hard time making AI that could navigate around objects we decided to have them be very simple-minded so that wouldn’t be a problem.

We had two different enemies. The first one was called the bomber, that went straight for the project, ignoring the player. The other one was called the chaser. It circled around the bombers, only aiming for the player.

The idea to have a base to defend from waves came from a custom map from Warcraft 3, called Hero Line Wars. In it you have a hero and you defend a base from waves of monsters. We thought this was the right amount of depth for a game to make as our first 3D-project.

Working as a team

Designing a game in 3D wasn’t that new for us level designers. We had previous assignments in 3D, which the graphical artists also had. But for the programers it was something new, therefore we were very considerate about what we could do with this project. We were very open for change, if they couldn’t manage something, such as AI that could navigate around obstacles.

This was also the first project where we had technical artists, and to have them fit in our pipeline required some getting used to.

Picture of the different stages of our progress.

Closing Thoughts

This game felt very barebones, which it also was by design. This was mainly a learning-experience for our group – to get used to the group, a new dimension and a new dicipline. I would’ve liked to make the map more populated so that the player had to worry about navigating around obstacles as much as they had to worry about the enemies destroying them or the project.

After this project I feel I’ve grown as a group-member, and that is experience well valued.