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Dialogue with the Flag
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Start Menu, Colonial Planet
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1.1 Crashed Cockpit
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1.2 Crashed Cockpit
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1.3 Crashed Cockpit
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2.1 Vacuum Plantation
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2.2 Vacuum Plantation
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2.3 Vacuum plantation
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3.1 Minning Area
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3.2 Minning Area
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3.3 Minning Area
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4.1 Hill Cemetery
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4.2 Hill Cemetery
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4.3 Hill Cemetery
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Destined Ending
“Mayfly”
Position: Designer, Artist
Unity | Aseprite | Adobe Photoshop
"MAYFLY" is my first attempt at the unity engine and game development workflow. The player can only move indirectly by changing the terrain, and also have to overcome the chaotic gravity brought by shooting stars. Human power is easily dominated by external forces, but even every small effort is an attempt with all the strength. Just like the meaning of "mayfly" in Chinese, the one-day life of this creature is meaningless in human eyes, but for itself, that day is its splendid life.
Inspiration
Before this project, I have been suffering from chronic asthma. During the numerous visits to the hospital, I have seen many kinds of patients. There are patients with family members taking care around the bed, and there are also lonely elderly people wandering in the corridor. Human beings are weak and helpless in the face of disease
Facing incurable diseases
I have witnessed my closest people’s fight against cancer, from diagnosis to gradual deterioration and death. In her best years of life, there are only diseases and loneliness around her. Every time I think back to that time, I will feel all that she has endured. If the final outcome is doomed, is the process meaningless?
<Sonatine> ソナチネ - Takashi Kitano, 1993
“Sonatine“ takes the gangster story as the background, but it actually shows the softest side of human nature when facing the doomed ending. As the outcasts of the organization, the protagonists knew their own end from the very beginning. but faced with the pressure of the organization, they instead spent the most carefree days on the beach.
The attitude to death
“Sonatine“ is a tragedy, but it is romantic. people are so quiet in the face of death. The battle came and went like a shower in the scorching sun. Without a trace of panic and sorrow, just died at the seaside like a ritual.
“Insignificant Hero”
Concept
In the endless cosmic space, human beings appear small and lonely. But those who dare to explore the universe also reflect the infinite courage and faith of human beings.
I hope to create a worldview that can show the smallness and courage of human beings at the same time, so I set an abandoned colonial planet in the game.
The protagonist's weak physical ability is in contrast to the strong external force. He strides forward at a weak pace but doesn't know that what awaits him is the preordained ending.
PHASE I
Level Sketch
At the early stage of the project, I drew some level sketches to tease out the gameplay, The player is in a strong force field, and the external force will drag the player into the abyss.
Micro-topography
The game has an editable terrain system. When the player encounters terrain obstruction, he can remove the soil in front and put it into his backpack. When a depression is encountered in the front, soil can be added to the depression in advance to pass smoothly and reduce the number of jumps.
External Force
At this stage, there is a fixed external force field. the player slides down under the effect of the oblique force. When encountering obstacles, the player can also overcome the force to jump, but jumping will bring a burden to the body, and there will be some punishment according to the number of jumps.
PHASE II
Affected by the force field, the player cannot move the body freely, but can only move slowly by observing the terrain and changing the terrain a little bit.
Prototype I
As shown in the figure, the player is affected by a constant force, and the player cannot move freely, but can only jump. The terrain of the game is composed of a large number of square units. Players can add or remove units by mouse click. The range of removal is (1.) in the figure, and the range of addition is (2.) in the figure. There is no limit to the number of times the player can operate the unit. The player needs to change the terrain and avoid jumping as much as possible to get the level reward and reach the bottom.
Playtest
Five testers were tested 15 times in total based on prototype I, Record the jump count, the number of removed and added units, and the test time for each time.
Data Conclusion
In order to reduce the number of jumps, players will use a lot of remove and add actions. According to the data, the number of removes is much larger than the number of adds, and the data changes greatly in different rounds. It is difficult for players to maintain patience during the test, and they no longer observe the terrain in the later stage, they just tend to use only one method to complete the level.
Tester Feedback
1. The units in the terrain are too small. It's very painful to click the small units on the screen with the mouse. 2. But for the levels, units are too large, the terrain editing is not accurate enough, and it is often stuck by the edge or gap of the unit. 3. The randomness of the level is too strong, and it’s too free to know what to do. 4. Too much frustration during the process, easy to lose interest. 5. Players' satisfaction comes from the rhythm of the “slide down”, but actually they feel too easy to be stuck. 6. Insufficient purpose, players lack motivation
Prototype II
The level is changed from individual units to a hexagonal tilemap. Long press and slide the mouse can operate continuously. More convenient but accurate for the mouse click.. Players can only change the terrain and use the variable external force to move forward, delete the player's jumping action and jumping punishment, and change it to monitor the player's real-time speed, and obtain punishment when the real-time speed exceeds a certain limit. Players need to observe and modify the micro-terrain and maintain a specific rhythm in the changing force field.
PHASE III
Pixel Study
I have chosen several pixel games with representative artistic styles and made an analogy according to the emphasis of their art on color, outline, shadow, and digital effects.
“Owlboy”
Fine outlines, high saturated colors, and detailed hierarchy. The level arts rely on tilesets. There is a strong light and shadow contrast in the tiles, and the UI design maintains the same pixel style.
“Sword & Sworcery”
Very simple character outlines and different characters look very similar and abstract. The art style is flat, there is no strong light and shadow contrast. The use of color is very restrained, with low saturation. The characters are difficult to distinguish from the background. The vector UI is simple and clean, with the effect of floating on the screen
“The Last Night”
The screen has a strong depth of field similar to 3d games. Light and shadow rely on lighting effects. A combination of digital effects and traditional pixel art.
The illustration above is the initial sketch of the worldview, and the final outcome has been partially modified.
Background
The story takes place on an abandoned colonial planet. The planet was once used for ore mining, but for unknown reasons, the mine stopped. After decades of silence, people paid attention to the planet again and wanted to restart the mine.
But the people who went to the planet disappeared one after another, and none of them returned. The protagonist is also one of the people assigned to the planet.
Art Assets
I want to emphasize the strange and desolate feeling of the planet different from the earth, so I use pure black cosmic space as the background, and use sporadic twinkling stars to create the silent atmosphere of the scene. The wild growth of plants around the cockpit and the mining area shows abnormal vitality, which is in great contrast to the loneliness and silence of the scene.
The protagonist starts a lonely adventure on a planet full of unknowns as if it is about to be swallowed by darkness. The final scene of the game is numerous cockpits lying on the Wasteland with takeoff failures. The chaotic force field caused by shooting stars is the truth of people's disappearance. The cockpit is like the grave of the protagonist, symbolizing the tragic ending that cannot be changed.
The style of the cockpit and greenery in the art assets refers to Twitter artist @Franrekk
Character
As an explorer of the colonial planet, the protagonist wears a typical astronaut dress. In order to allow the player to separate the characters in the background with strong light and dark contrast, I have tried different outlines and tones of the spirte.
The character has a total of three animations, the breathing action during standby, the squatting action when the mouse click changes the terrain, and the action at the moment of injury when the real-time speed exceeds the limit.
Sprite with dark outlines is easier to detect against a colorful background, but it will blend with the black background, so I used a mid-tone. And draw the body closer to the inside of the screen darker, so that the character has a sideways feeling.
Game Controls
The player has the ability to edit the terrain. Left click to remove or add hexagon tiles, right click to change the mode(add or remove). Long press and slide the mouse can operate continuously.
Shooting Stars
The player is affected by a constant force facing downwards, but the shooting stars will change the force field and bring a strong external force to drag the player. The shooting stars are also the visual guide of force field change. Firstly a large shooting star appears. About three seconds later, a shooting star cluster will appear that lasts for a period of time. In the duration of the cluster, shooting stars will bring the same force as their movement direction.
Level Design
The game has four levels in total. In each level, when the player passes the designated location, a shooting star will be triggered, which will bring about a change in the force in the same direction as the shooting star. After observing the meteor, the player can avoid or use the force to cross obstacles by modifying the terrain.
Level 1 "crashed cockpit" is the first level for players to land on the planet. The terrain is a gentle downhill. The purpose is to make players aware of the existence of shooting stars and the variable force field.
The terrain in the second level "vacuum plantation" is uphill, and there will be shooting stars in the opposite direction. Players need to use the gravity brought by the shooting stars to climb up. The root system of plants brings pores to the surface of the earth, so it is convenient to quickly build "steps" at specific locations.
Level 3 "mining area" is downhill, the terrain surface is embedded with ore, and the ore is protruding and has low friction, so players should avoid encountering the force on the ore surface.
Level 4 "hill cemetery" is a cliff and also the climax of the game’s mood. There are protruding stones on the cliff as a foothold, and players need to climb down the stairs at the slowest pace. Once the player encounters the force in an inappropriate position, he will fall directly to the bottom of the cliff.
Particle Effects
All stars in the game are composed of two parts: the stars that twinkle and move slowly as the background, and the shooting stars that pass quickly as visual guides. They are all implemented by particle effects in unity. There is no bgm during the game. Only when a shooting star passes by, it will be accompanied by a loud sound that is getting closer and closer, which will create a sense of oppression for the player.
Lighting Effects
To enhance the layering of art and make the character stand out against the background, I divide the scene into three parts: foreground, middle ground, and background, and apply global illumination and point illumination to different objects. With the combination of bloom and vignette effects, the scene realizes the lighting atmosphere of a mysterious cosmic planet.
UI Design
In order to convey the mood of the game, the UI design is very simple and clean. The text content that appears in the game is presented in the upper left of the screen space. There is a "star" at the bottom of the screen indicating the instantaneous speed. When the speed increases, the star will grow horizontally, and it will turn red when the speed exceeds the upper limit. If the rhythm is not controlled and the speed is too fast several times, the bloom effects of the screen will keep turning red until the bloom is completely red, which symbolizes the tragic ending of the protagonist.
