Jimbo & Dimbos Space Adventure
Roles
Game design & Level design
Team size
10 people
Time
4 weeks, Winter/spring 2023
Engine
Unity
CONTENT
Concept
Jimbo & Dimbo is a survival co-op FPS where the players have crash landed on a unfamiliar planet. They need to work together and combine their weapons to find the parts so they can repair their ship.
But be careful the night is scary and there is something scittering in the dark. Protect your ship and don't die.
Contribution
Game Design
Concept, Game loop, mechancis
Level Design
Level blockout, Puzzle design, Level dressing & pacing
Game Design
The of this game was symbiosis, and it had to be a co-op game. My group and I started with a typical brainstorming meeting with the entire group and decided on the type of game we wanted to create.
After that, the designers had a meeting talking about the mechanics and the game's objectives. We decided on creating a space-themed game with a clear goal of collecting something and bringing it back while defending your ship.
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After that one designer came up with the idea of having the weapons of the players interacting with each other. So me and him sat down and worked out how the weapons were gonna work. I designed a system in Miro to make it simple and clear.
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Level Design
This project I was the only level designer and we had a designer in almost every other main department so I mainly focused on level design.
Research
I looked at similar games to ours, such as Helldivers, for gameplay and layout inspiration. I also took inspiration from games like Slime Rancher for the first-person perspective aspect, given that our game was an FPS. Additionally, I studied various games to understand how alien planets are typically constructed in game design
Blockout & layout iteration
I created a quick sketch of the level, but I wanted to get into the engine as quickly as possible since it was a short project. Knowing that we would be on an alien planet and outside, I used the terrain tool to create a basic blockout.
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I aimed for the world to be quite open, allowing the player to see most of it when they began and then decide for themselves where to go.
Second Iteration
After receiving feedback, I realized that it might be confusing for the player to determine where to go, potentially overwhelming them. I adjusted the level design to keep everything in front of the player from the moment they spawned. This made it clearer for them to understand their initial objective while still allowing room for exploration.
Third Iteration
During the third week, we made significant changes to the gameplay loop. Now, players would search for ship parts in dungeons which they needed to bring back to repair the ship. I redesigned the entire terrain so the dungeons would fit while still keeping the world open, with open landscape.
Looking back on it, the world was very boring and empty. You could almost see everything from start which is not that fun for the players.
Fourth Iteration
After receiving feedback from the judges, who mentioned that the landscape was too open and had excessive dead space, I decided to implement a more linear level design. This involved guiding the player by blocking off areas with mountains and directing them toward the dungeons by following a clearer path.
I also added a shortcut to make the return journey to the ship easier once the player reached a certain point. The shortcut is hidden from the players, but find the shortcut after the first dungeon
Design behind dungeon
After changing the game loop to involve players searching for ship parts in dungeons, I designed one of the dungeons for players to explore.
When designing the dungeon, I wanted to incorporate the players weapon abilities into a puzzle, encouraging them to think together.
In this puzzle, players must shoot a control panel with electricity to open a bridge that opens a path to the ship part. However, once the bridge is open, a door closes.
To proceed, they must match up a switch to open the door while keeping the control panel active to have both the bridge and the door open simultaneously.
Level Art
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Overworld
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Dungeons and remnants of an old civilization incorporated into the terrain.
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Vines covering ruins, growing sporadically.
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Rocks from landslides crushing robots and certain ruins.
When dressing the level, I worked closely with one of the artists to ensure that the level matched their vision. I aimed to create the appearance of a barren and deserted planet where nature had reclaimed the ruins, and robots had inhabited it for some time.
Dungeons
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Roofs caved in, allowing sunlight to filter in.
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Broken roof and floor tiles.
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Generally good structure except for caved in areas
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World events
This isn't exactly level design, but I was responsible for setting up the world events so that they would occur in the correct sequence and timing. For instance, ensuring that the second dungeon opened once the first one was completed, and triggering the final event after turning in the last ship part.
I worked closely with the programmers to implement these events using the tools they had developed.