Joseph Roberts

Reflection & Planning

Why i’m designing a new game:

  • After the 2nd playtest, as a team we sat down and discussed our thoughts on both the playtest and the future of the game. Almost immediately it was brought up that the game felt empty, boring and had no real character to it and as such, it was decided as a team that we wanted to explore ways to improve our game. Going off of our feedback from playtest 2 we knew that what we had was an over complicated version of the GDD for Those Left Behind so, we want to reimagine the game as a simple resource management game where the narrative is controlled by the players choices. By approaching the game in this way we can create a more casual gameplay loop where players don’t have to think as strategically and cant understand the gameplay intuitively. 
  • Going back to the drawing board we noted that in the project brief’s objectives it outlined a resource generation mechanic that has a upgrade system, randomised events, and a narrative gameplay where the player interacts with the characters. Whilst brainstorming as a group I suggested that they think about some new mechanics that they would like to see in the game and that would cover all these objectives whilst remaining a simple, intuitive game. Here is what my team wanted:
    • Continued Gameplay experience (Like Surviving The Aftermath)
    • Being able to interact with the camps (Being able to build them like in Clash of Clans)
    • Resources have a utility (For example, upgrading the camps or needed to build camps)
    • A checklist (Players must complete the checklist to complete the game)
    • Once a task has been done that is when the next narrative scene will be triggered
  • As I am not an avid fan of either narrative based games or resource generation games I asked my group what games they have taken inspiration from to suggest these mechanics. The reason for this was so that I could get a better understanding of what these mechanics would look like in a published game. I was suggested to play Fallout Shelter, Surviving the Aftermath which were predominantly resource management games however, my team was keen for Those Left Behind to have a similar gameplay loop to them. 
  • Due to the significant changes I would need to make to the existing game, I decided that the most efficient and smartest way to approach this was to start from a blank canvas. I only have 3 weeks to develop this game and as such I’m not going to make it perfect but, from the feedback from the playtests I remembered that players would rather play a game that is fun, simple and intuitive than an over complicated boring game. Although my mechanics worked perfectly in the previous game and there were very few bugs it didn’t make it a fun game. I would rather develop a game that has bugs but is enjoyable to play than continue to develop a dead end prototype. 

Research and Inspiration:

Surviving the Aftermath:

  • Surviving the Aftermath is going to be one of the main inspirations for this new version of Those Left Behind. Within this game there are a lot of similar mechanics that I want to implement such as the way they have a continuous timer with the ability to fast forward, the way the player can interact with the buildings, the UI layout and design. Pretty much, this game is a major inspiration for Those Left Behind as we feel this is the type of genre we want to lean into. Here are some photos or the features / mechanics that i was talking about, additionally here is a link to a clip that shows all these mechanics in progress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGtgYHEjxn8&list=PLJ4kldXJgj6OiGatqplY0SUiXCqA6vKgD&ab_channel=TheOnlyL0nzY Skip to 15:10.
  • The main reason this game stood out was due to the simplicity of these mechanics. The day progression looks and feels intuitive and you can visually see the progress bar and the buttons are very self explanatory on how to speed things up and pause the game. The same can be said for tracking the resources as the bar clearly shows what each resource is with a count right next to it whilst also clearly showing each character right underneath. Lastly, the bar to show the options for the buildings is clear and shows the requirements for them right underneath making the game look and feel simpler. 

Clash of Clans:

  • This was my inspiration as to how I wanted to develop the resource generation mechanic as I felt Clash of Clans does this mechanic exactly how I would like to see it done in Those Left Behind. I feel the way you build and generate resources in this game is satisfying and also clear. The camp’s art clearly shows what it generates, whilst also having a clear tell when you can collect the resource with an icon that pops above the camp. Additionally, if you click into the camp you can visually see the production happening as the capacity increases (0/100 -> 1/100 etc), whilst also showing the production rate. 

Technical Breakdown:

In the next section I will break down how I developed this game by explaining the functionality of my scripts. This project was significantly longer than I had planned and expected it to be so instead of creating little prototypes along the way I decided it would be best to first write all the scripts I believed I would need and then implement it into unity. By doing it this way I would be able to tackle the coding in one week and then fix bugs and issues in the remaining time. This breakdown will give a complete picture of how all these scripts worked together to make all these mechanics function whilst creating a game loop.