DevLog of ‘A Day’

Game link of ‘A Day’

shijiesong.itch.io/aday

Catalog

1. Tools
2. Aims & Objectives
3. Content & Playtesting
4. Critical Reflection

1. Tools

• Game Engine: Unity 2019.4.0f1, with Visual Studio 2019
• Game Art: Aseprite, Photoshop
• Sound: From ‘Maple Story‘

2. Aims & Objectives

According to the files given, the game/experience should be ‘demonstrating a clear message to the player through its mechanic, visuals and/or narrative‘.

And in this game, what I was thinking at the beginning is to let players rethink about a simple day in their lives by experiencing a day in my life in this game. But it’s a huge topic, not specific enough, especially is what am I going to let players to play.

3. Content & Playtesting & Reflection

Version 1

So then I narrowed it down to ‘try to balance the time and finish the job within limited time in a day‘. And the first mechanics I create is like this:

The core of this mechanic is ‘time‘, and I was trying to quantify it. As a result, player will get ‘T-Coins‘ if they finish the ‘Work‘ earlier than the limited time given. And T-coins can be used to gain ‘Happiness‘ by doing related events, like reading books or playing games.

And the first prototype used to be tested is like this (without the audio sign though):

When player get in specific areas, it will be showing the name of the event:

The playtesting reflection on this scenes, by Maddy and David, were:

• Why in this room? Why can players only be trapped in this limited space?
• Is there any story back ground behind this? Like lockdown or something?
• What can a player do in this game? Any ‘reward’ for player’s action?
• …..

These question actually does raised some questions, even though some of it I had already thought about.

I need to find anwers/reasons for the existence these images and actions.

Version 2

A long period of time after the first play-testing, I was thinking about what I actually have to do in this game. Not just to answer the question raised by Maddy and David, but also to answer the question from myself:

‘What kind of experience I want to create for the player?’

The first time I had the answer was that:

The player is going to experience the loop of ‘Work->Entertain->Work‘, and get an actual feel of ‘Bored‘, and that’s what I want the player to experience, how bored I was when I basically can’t go anywhere during the lockdown.

Then I tried to realize those functions in Version 1, by doing some coding. But when I started to think about the whole framework of the game, of all the codes and functions, I found it not necessary.

It was doable, but I may had to do many coding work just to create a rather boring framework. And too much code for me = Pain.

Remake the game concept

Then I spent a lot of time on doing everything else except actually making this game in Unity, just hoped to find some ‘great’ ideas on what I was going to make, because I still thought the current mechanic is still rather rough to play.

Finally, I start putting simple progress bars in the scene and making main functions of the game: balancing ‘Work’ and ‘Life’.

The blue bar below represents Energy, and the orange one stands for Happiness. When the player is going through an event, both bars will react differently.

For example, as one of the main events, ‘Playing‘ will cost Energy and increase Happiness.

I made 4 main events:

（↑ stands for Increasing, ↓ is Decreasing,= is remaining the same)

• Playing: Energy ↓ , Happiness ↑
• Sleeping: Energy ↑ , Happiness =
• Reading: Energy ↓ , Happiness ↑
• Peeping: Energy = , Happiness ↑

And in terms of making a symbol for the game progress, shown to the player, different ‘Words’ were added in the scene:

As for the Feedback added to the events, to make these interaction more dynamic and interesting, at least looked more interesting, certain animations are added:

Also, when Energy runs out, the player will be ‘punished’, and be pushed to take a rest:

When Happiness runs out, as a result, ‘I will feel awful….’:

Ending

When the player finished all the events and all the ‘Words’ are filled, the game ends.

And you can always press the Restart button on the top left side to re-run the game:

4. Critical Reflection

What I have learned:

• Make pixel characters and related animations from scratch
• A relatively complete framework of game features
• Easy to understand game guides (without direct hints such as text)
• Rapid iterations of gameplay
• Simple game color tips (contrasting colors to highlight objects, mapping colors to psychology, etc.)

What I need to improve:

• Complete the game development cycle on time
• Game sound production and application
• More playtests (let players play more smoothly)
• Lack of hints for the game narrative
• ……