Apotcalypse (3D Colony Sim)

Trailer

Details

Role: Design Lead, Mechanics Designer, UI/UX Designer, Artist

High Concept: A fungal infection has taken over your potted plant! Keep the plant-like creatures in your potted plant called Frutlets alive, and they will save your plant from the infection!

< This is a Frutlet

"This game *works*. It is more than the sum of its parts. It is unpretentious, honest, and a joy to play. In art, we call this the "X-Factor", or possessing a je ne sais quoi. It is a rare and valuable thing you have achieved, and you should be very proud of yourselves."

- Comment on Grade Report

Yes, my team and I are very proud of what we have made over the period of 6 months, this was truly a great experience for us!

This project was extremely challenging for us, as we opted to develop a colony sim, which was pretty unique in the history of Digipen Singapore, and larger in scope by nature than most other genres, but I feel that our team has managed the scope of the project well, even having time in-between to take well deserved breaks!

Making of the game

Once again, this game was made on a custom 3D engine, made by my wonderful tech team which worked hard and pulled through to provide the team with tools which was imperative for the creation of Apotcalypse. This time, due to the lack of manpower, I also had a major role in the creation of art assets, but this time in both 2D and 3D.

Prototyping and Iterations

As both a game designer for this game, along with my co-designer, we have created several prototypes and iterations of the game to bring to you this final product. We even made a paper prototype during development to get feedback on the game systems while the engine was being prepared, which greatly helped the development of the game during prototyping on the engine when it was ready for use.

Once we had our first prototype however, new issues arose that could not be found on the paper prototype, as the game was now to be played in real time rather in turns. The camera view of the player is now also in play, which brought up yet another issue in our game.

You see, the initial idea was that the potted plant would be a generic round pot which the player would be able to spin around in order to see each room that is in the soil of the pot. While providing a unique camera control scheme for a colony sim, this meant that at any given time, there are rooms on the back of the pot that would be out of the peripheral vision of the player, which can cause the loss of information as Frutlets would go about their business when not in view. The Frutlets could also get infected by the mushroom spores when the player was unable to see them, which would mean that players could miss the chance of saving Frutlets from the infection.

This was eventually solved when the team came together to discuss about possible solutions with the advice of our lecturers. We decided to rebuild the entire game (at the surprise of our peers), and convert everything into a layout where every room can be seen at once. This greatly improved the experience that playtesters had with our game, and it also solved a lot of issues that our team has been tackling as well.

Demo

The game is currently up on Digipen's game gallery, feel free to download the demo from the following link to try the game for yourself!

https://games.digipen.edu/games/apotcalypse