Un héros qui a du chien
My role in the Project:
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Game Designer
Programmer
Challenges:
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Individual project
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Develop a simple gameplay loop to meet the requested scope
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Standardize the visual aspects of the game
Arcade
Colorful
Cartoony
Short
The project was designed as part of the Outils de développement multimédia course using the Unity engine. The goal of the assignment was to create a complete mini-game. Therefore, it had to include a main menu, an options menu, a summary of instructions and controls, and, finally, the mini-game itself.
Description
Breaking News:
Behind me stand the buildings where a true tragedy occurred. People were forced to jump out of their windows in the business district near the courthouse. The police have arrested a suspect, Joe "Mew" Bowie. The event could have turned out much worse without the intervention of a good Samaritan before the authorities arrived. Amadeus "Boubou" Milord III is a pug from a modest family. The first dog to graduate in his circle, Amadeus is a defense attorney. On his way to work, he witnessed what was happening. Currently being questioned by the police, we hope to interview him later. It’s a dark day for our small town; I’ll return the mic to you…
In Un héros qui a du chien, the player must collect as many points as possible by catching falling people. Sofas that drop on the character's head cause them to lose health points. After three hits, the game is over. A dash is available every four seconds to move a greater distance, which is useful for catching someone on the other side or avoiding an obstacle seen at the last moment.
Production
For this individual work, I first started by researching the core gameplay. Initially, I decided on something quite simple: objects fall, some score points like in an arcade, while others harm the player. I had several ideas on how to implement this concept with a more cartoony packaging:
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A monkey collecting fruits from a tree in the canopy.
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A miner with his cart who must collect falling ores while avoiding debris.
When I found the Ultimate Animated Character Pack (de Quaternius), it contained some nice low-poly characters, including a pug and a cow with a human body wearing a suit and tie. I thought, why not do something much more absurd? The idea of embodying a dog with a human body saving people thrown by a villainous antagonist with a cow's head fit the vibe I wanted to give to the game.
Later, I reconstructed an urban environment (Ultimate Buildings Pack) that created the illusion, from the camera's point of view, that a city existed beyond what the player could see. Then, I set up a spawner that makes a person to catch appear and a sofa to avoid. The more entities appear as the game progresses, the faster their appearance rate accelerates. Thus, the goal of saving as many people as possible becomes more complex with all the obstacles threatening to fall on us.
