Introduction

Dear visitor, welcome to our game project made for Howest DAE.

Our group is made out of three artists: Cui, Daan and Savvas, two coders: Ine and Karel, and one sound designer Eliott.

In our game, you are playing as a character escorting a vehicle full of radiocative waste and you have to beat your friend in a 1v1 race by dealing with obstacles and keeping your payload moving fast.

Art

We settled for a cartoony style style with low-polygon, blocky shapes and bright colors.

Prototyping

What engine should we use?

Ragdoll physics is a core aesthetic of our game, it reflects the cartoony aspect of our art style and gives a healthy does of fun and randomness to the movement of the characters.

So far, our tests have given us better results in Unity than Unreal Engine.

What kind of camera?

A top-down, slightly angled camera gives a good view of the incoming obstacles. And having the payload track on a vertical line gives a lot of space within the split-screen context.

What is our payload?

Arguably the most important question: why are we even playing?

We went through several ideas such as an ambulance carrying a patient, an
escape vehicle from a bank robbery or a military truck carrying the first infected of a zombie virus.

But we finally settled with a truck carrying nuclear waste for several reasons:

- We can have the characters wear hazmat suits with bright, clearly visible colors and simple models that fit with the game's cartoony style.

- The radiation from the payload is a good way to introduce extra mechanics to the game.

What kind of obstacles can be fun?

As the core mechanic of our game, the obstacles are the one thing we absolutely need to get right.
So far, our ideas are:

- A traffic light that has to be turned green manually.

- Moving some barriers and traffic cones off the road.

- Having to help a old person cross the street (by dragging them "gently" using ragdoll physics).

- Getting a UFO to fly away by playing a specific melody (just like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

What now?

Now, we have to experiment more and make prototypes to figure out what which game engine is best fit for our game, find the right speed for the payload and the right density of obstacles.
We also have to refine our art bible and create a fitting sound bible.

That's it for this week, see you soon!