CONCEPT
Free your gargantuan Eldritch friend from containment in this co-op experience. Occult Fiends is an asymmetric puzzle platformer with a lot of heart. Experience the true magnificence of standing next to your Eldritch God and then… how it is to be spit around the room by them. Help your huge friend by navigating to small spaces their plump frame could not possibly reach. Experience true dependence on one another and use some jolly co-operation to progress towards freedom!
CONTRIBUTION
3C DESIGN
Camera System
Character movement
GAMEPLAY DESIGN
Enemy behaviour
Players mechanics
GAME PILLARS
Switching Supportive Role
In the game the two players will work in symbiosis with a set of skills. At different times one of the player would be the enabler for the other, and viceversa.
Constant action
Avoid the players to be idle at any point, they always need to combine their abilities and solve puzzles and traverse the level.
CORE LOOP
ANALYSE
Check the interactable elements in the level
ACT
Use the two players abilities to solve the puzzles
TEST
Understand what the different elements in the level do
RESEARCH AND PLANNING
Following my usual method when starting a new project, I did some research and analysis on the kind of games wanted to take inspiration from.
Gameplay research
During the design meeting we decided we wanted to try to do something peculiar and risky rather then going with a safe game. At this point we decided to play with two main elements:
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Different size of the two players
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Fun and funny mechanic
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For the mechanic we opted for the spitting mechanic since we thought would be fun to use and would give the funny feeling we wanted.
The first iteration of the game
The final iteration of the game
We decided we also needed some simple interactable object and puzzles in our game. For this purpose, I did an analysis on It Takes Two clustering the different mechanics used in the game so we could decide which kind of puzzles we wanted to make.
Camera research
At the same time, I did some research on the type of camera that would fit better our game.
The main games we took inspiration from are The Last Guardian and Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons. The first one more for the big-small character feeling that could be compared to our game while the second more for the camera feeling we wanted to achieve
The first iteration of the game
The final iteration of the game
The decision was to try out both a rally camera (like Brothers: A Tail Of Two Sons) and a fixed camera. The main reason to test the fixed camera was that would allow us to have both players, most of the time, inside the view.
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We decided to avoid the split-screen solution since it would make the game more chaotic and would require a lot of work on the art side. This because the small character would have a closer view of the assets so they needed to be really detailed but at the same time big enough to fill the room.
PROTOTYPING AND IMPLEMENTATION
Camera prototyping
Since we now knew which kind of camera we wanted to test, I proceeded with the prototyping of the two types of camera we wanted.
After some testing with the whole team, I decided to go with the fixed camera since it gave an old style feeling and allowed me to have more control on it.
The rally camera it definitely gave a better feeling in terms of cinematics and smoothness but didn't allow me to have a control on it resulting in, sometimes, having one of the player outside of the view.
Camera system
The camera system works with colliders. The idea is that, once the small player goes inside the invisible collider, the camera switches to the "connected" camera.
I tried to make this system modular and simple, so to each Camera-switching-collider there's a connected camera that has been added in the level.
With this system implemented, I then worked closely with the level designer to define where the different cameras should be placed to have both a nice view of the level but work gameplay wise.
Knowing that there would be a lot of iterations on the camera position, I implemented the system so that would be easy to modify the camera placement. This resulted in none or really small effort when I was asked to move some cameras around.
Characters movement and mechanics
The camera system works with colliders. The idea is that, once the small player goes inside the invisible collider, the camera switches to the "connected" camera.
I tried to make this system modular and simple, so to each Camera-switching-collider there's a connected camera that has been added in the level.
With this system implemented, I then worked closely with the level designer to define where the different cameras should be placed to have both a nice view of the level but work gameplay wise.
Knowing that there would be a lot of iterations on the camera position, I implemented the system so that would be easy to modify the camera placement. This resulted in none or really small effort when I was asked to move some cameras around.
Level lightning and real time lights
The camera system works with colliders. The idea is that, once the small player goes inside the invisible collider, the camera switches to the "connected" camera.
I tried to make this system modular and simple, so to each Camera-switching-collider there's a connected camera that has been added in the level.
With this system implemented, I then worked closely with the level designer to define where the different cameras should be placed to have both a nice view of the level but work gameplay wise.
Knowing that there would be a lot of iterations on the camera position, I implemented the system so that would be easy to modify the camera placement. This resulted in none or really small effort when I was asked to move some cameras around.