PROJECT DETAILS

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Keep it lights is a mystical medieval first person shooter game that consists of 3 levels and a tutorial level.

The objective in this game is to go to each level, find a light orb, attack enemies using your light orb, while trying not panic yourself to death, destroy all dark spawners finish a level and move on.

This project really pushed me in all ways. My programming and debugging skills significantly improved, I learned a bit about project and team management. I also learnt some level design which is a new skill acquired from this project

PROJECT STATUS

SOFTWARE USED

PROJECT TYPE

TEAM SIZE

LANGUAGE USED

PRIMARY ROLE

SECONDARY ROLES

LEVEL DESIGNER & ENVIRONMENT DESIGNER

GAMEPLAY PROGRAMMER & CO PROJECT LEAD

3 PROGRAMMERS & 1 DESIGNER

C#

UNITY 3D

COMPLETED & PUBLISHED

COLLEGE, YEAR 2, STUDIO 2

Making a jump is easy BUT making a jump that feels good to use and play is extremely hard. I have had countless issues in making my jump work. Some of the issues were weak gravity, floaty jump, to much control when you jump, jump screwing up players momentum.

So in the end i had to make my own fake gravity , make sure that the gravity is only applied when the player is jumping. I implemented a player forward momentum multiplier. so when the player jumps he kind of does a small forward dash. the jump is far from perfect but definitely better than a default floaty jump implementation
JUMP IMPLEMENTATION
MOVEMENT & CAMERA IMPLEMENTATION
Camera stutter was also a huge issue. Whenever i move and rotate the camera at the same time there were huge stutters. To solve this issue i made a parent object holding the rigid body and child object holding the camera. In code i made sure to rotate the camera for that i used the child object and to move i used the parent. this way the rigid body is not struggling to decide to move and rotate at the same time. This solved my issue of camera stutter.
When making the player controller i had a lot of issues in making the movement responsiveness configurable. This was also around the time where i just learnt steering behaviour. To me this looked like a perfect solution make a super configurable controller. So after implementing steering behavior for the player movement i was able configure values such steering speed, max speed, stopping speed.
My Intention was to create a player controller that is butter smooth to move and control. I wanted to have no camera stutter and i wanted the movement responsiveness to be configurable.
Initially my my team member duro did the initial enemy spawning implementation, From there i have transformed it be a more of an alive system.

So to make it more difficult for the player to enter and kill the the spawner I made sure that the base enemy is spawned at random based on the spawner radius. this way the player cant speedrun hsi way into the spawner.

I also made a system where after an interval of time the spawner would grow . When the spawner does grow, the amount of enemy spawning increases, the dome also glows to give feedback for the player
ENEMY SPAWNING & SPAWNER BEHAVIOUR IMPLEMENTATION

To emulate darkness i made a spherical post processing volume, so when the player enters a bunch of screen effects get enabled, making it more difficult to navigate inside the spawner and i also made a revolving fog particle system. so both of them combined give this dark and gritty feel to it
DARKNESS SIMULATION INSIDE SPAWNER
Orb Spawning was the most difficult system to make among all the systems in keep it light. The thing is i made my life difficult by my making a complicated system that would have also achieved similar results if i went for simpler system..

How this works is , there is a orb manager which keeps track of all the unequipped and unused light orbs in the scene. when a player equips any of the light orbs, this orb manager updates which orbs unused remaining. The cool this is i can configure when i want new light orbs to spawn, how many i want to spawn and i can randomize the spawn location based on pre existing unused light orbs.

This is one of the most complex systems i have ever made. Even though i should have gone for more simpler solution, i am still very proud of how this system turned out
ORB SPAWNING IMPLEMENTATION
PARTICLE EFFECTS

I have added multiple effects to make the light orb it fun and satisfying to use. When you add all these small effects together they add up.

One of the effects is the glowing. When the player does not equip the orb the orb glows, if the player goes near it, its starts pulsating, indicating to the player that they can pick it up.

when the player attacks using the light orb, it starts to fade in and glow, there is also light source attached to it, so when the light orb is travelling the light is reflected on the environment as well. When the orb comes back to the player it fades out.

Each time you use the orb , it gets darker. When the orb is out of ammo , it will automatically drop out of the player's hand and start pulsating to blue, indicating that something is going to happen with the orb.
LIGHT ORB GLOW IMPLEMENTATION

How this system works is, there are certain threshold that the panic meter (which is player health in this game) has to meet. When met certain effects get enabled.

In this game the bar you see on the top left corner is the panic meter bar, when its empty the player is max health, when the bar is full and red the player health is xero.

This system has 2 thresholds. When it meets the first threshold, one of the post processing volumes gets enabled and effects such as the  the screen becoming  unsaturated , slight camera shake start to appear.

When the panic meter meets the second threshold, another post processing volume gets enables and effects such as more camera shake, lens distortion and pulsating vignette appear. I animate the post processing volumes through code for this to work
POST PROCESSING PANIC SYSTEM

Due to Time Constraints we decided to go for in game  text based Tutorial. So i decided to spice it up , by adding small effects that make a big difference.

In each area containing tutorial text , i split them into two. Above text is the action itself example jumping which is in bold and below it is how to perform an action text, example press space bar to jump. This way the player can read and understand the text more easily.

I made sure that each action text is bold and glowing in yellow so it grabs the attention of the player immediately to read it.

When the player enters an area with tutorial text, it first only shows the bold yellow action text. After a delay then the text of how to perform an  action fades in, this prevents overload of information from the beginning. This is a drip feeding way to teach the player to do something
TUTORIAL POLISH
I have made a variety of particle effects using unity particle system such as lamp explosion effect, which is first video on the left, using primitive cubes and ring textures from the net, physics based rock explosion effect, which is the second video in the middle, using a low poly rock mesh from sketchfab and putting a trail renderer to the rock mesh and lastly an abstract physics based explosion effect, which is the last video on the right.
In keep it Light this is the second level with medium difficulty. The way you play this level is by first finding where is the light orbs located in the level. Then you platform your way to the light orb while trying not to fall down in the pit of enemies. Once you get the light orb you try to make your way to the dark spawners and destroy them. This is difficult as each spawner is guarded with green platforms that move up and down. so entering and exiting is not easy. Once the player destroys both the two spawners, A glowing door will appear. when the player touches the glowing door they complete level 2. This level was heavily inspired by the concept of floor is lava. in this case the enemy pit is the lava floor.
LEVEL DESCRIPTION

My intended goal for the player is to enter the level and just observe for a couple of seconds.As when you just enter the level a dark vignette gets enabled to just narrow the player's vision. This also makes brighter objects more brighter.

So i intentionally made areas such as the safe zones and platforms having the lights orbs be illuminated with bright light. this way it encourages the player to be curious and think what's that bright area over there. This way the player is indirectly guided on what to do in the level.
SETTING THE INTENDED GOAL

One of the core elements of this level are these moving platforms. There are three types of platforms in these levels each type are color coded and move in specific set of directions.

By default these platforms do not move. the player has to first equip a light orb and as the player moves nearer to the platforms gradually some of them start moving. This is to give some challenge to the player to platform his way to kill the dark spawner. This also gives a sense of impact as the player is directly causing an effect in the world

MOVING PLATFROMS
When my lecturer was testing the game he mentioned that, When the player falls in the pit of enemies there is no break for the player as , the player cannot come up on the platform as it is elevated and the player does not have any place to retreat and take a break and analyze.

So one of the ways i tried to combat this is by placing Safe zones. these areas are elevated zones lit with green torches to indicate to the player that this area means no harm.

To make it an actual safe zone, i added a trigger collider and added functionality that whenever the player enters one of the safe zones, a semi transparent shield fades in , to indicate to the player that this area will protect you. if an enemy touches this green shield they will get destroyed.

So now if the player falls into the enemy pit , they have somewhere to retreat to and process whats happening.
SAFE ZONES
In Keep it light , level hub is the area , where the player gets to choose which level they want to go to and its an area where the player will repeatedly be rreturning to.

Due to Time constraints, our designer had to focus on balancing and game testing.

So the designer decided to make a functional version of the level hub, because at the time this was not our priority.

There are certain problems with this design. One every single path and door looks the same. The player cannot differentiate which path is which level. Also our tutorial environment and level hub environment is almost the same.

PREVIOUS LEVEL HUB DESIGN
Since Keep it light got nominated for best studio Project for SAE SHOWCASE 2022. I decided to focus on adding a lot of different polish to the game. one of then was re designing the level hub.

My intention was to make each path a bit different, so the player can kind of sense that each path has varying difficulties or each path is a different level.

So what i did is i color coded each path. if you see from the above video . Each path shows a specific color indicating a different level and difficulty. each path has a door that leads to a level. Each door has a skull count above

one skull means easy or level one , 2 skulls mean medium difficult or level and so one.

Overall i really like how this level hub has come out i think it conveys the intended goal to the player well.

NEW LEVEL HUB DESIGN
KEEP IT LIGHT WAS AWARDED FOR BEST STUDIO PROJECT FOR GAMES FOR THE SAE SHOWCASE 2022

PROJECT DETAILS

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Keep it lights is a mystical medieval first person shooter game that consists of 3 levels and a tutorial level.

​

The objective in this game is to go to each level, find a light orb, attack enemies using your light orb, while trying not panic yourself to death, destroy all dark spawners finish a level and move on.

​

This project really pushed me in all ways. My programming and debugging skills significantly improved, I learned a bit about project and team management. I also learnt some level design which is a new skill acquired from this project

PROJECT STATUS

SOFTWARE USED

PROJECT TYPE

TEAM SIZE

LANGUAGE USED

PRIMARY ROLE

SECONDARY ROLES

LEVEL DESIGNER & ENVIRONMENT DESIGNER

GAMEPLAY PROGRAMMER & CO PROJECT LEAD

3 PROGRAMMERS & 1 DESIGNER

C#

UNITY 3D

COMPLETED & PUBLISHED

COLLEGE, YEAR 2, STUDIO 2

Making a jump is easy BUT making a jump that feels good to use and play is extremely hard. I have had countless issues in making my jump work. Some of the issues were weak gravity, floaty jump, to much control when you jump, jump screwing up players momentum.

​

JUMP IMPLEMENTATION

MOVEMENT & CAMERA IMPLEMENTATION

My Intention was to create a player controller that is butter smooth to move and control. I wanted to have no camera stutter and i wanted the movement responsiveness to be configurable.

Initially my my team member duro did the initial enemy spawning implementation, From there i have transformed it be a more of an alive system.

​

So to make it more difficult for the player to enter and kill the the spawner I made sure that the base enemy is spawned at random based on the spawner radius. this way the player cant speedrun hsi way into the spawner.

​

I also made a system where after an interval of time the spawner would grow . When the spawner does grow, the amount of enemy spawning increases, the dome also glows to give feedback for the player

ENEMY SPAWNING & SPAWNER BEHAVIOUR IMPLEMENTATION

To emulate darkness i made a spherical post processing volume, so when the player enters a bunch of screen effects get enabled, making it more difficult to navigate inside the spawner and i also made a revolving fog particle system. so both of them combined give this dark and gritty feel to it

DARKNESS SIMULATION INSIDE SPAWNER

Orb Spawning was the most difficult system to make among all the systems in keep it light. The thing is i made my life difficult by my making a complicated system that would have also achieved similar results if i went for simpler system..

​

​

This is one of the most complex systems i have ever made. Even though i should have gone for more simpler solution, i am still very proud of how this system turned out

ORB SPAWNING IMPLEMENTATION

PARTICLE EFFECTS

I have added multiple effects to make the light orb it fun and satisfying to use. When you add all these small effects together they add up.

​

One of the effects is the glowing. When the player does not equip the orb the orb glows, if the player goes near it, its starts pulsating, indicating to the player that they can pick it up.

​

when the player attacks using the light orb, it starts to fade in and glow, there is also light source attached to it, so when the light orb is travelling the light is reflected on the environment as well. When the orb comes back to the player it fades out.

​

Each time you use the orb , it gets darker. When the orb is out of ammo , it will automatically drop out of the player's hand and start pulsating to blue, indicating that something is going to happen with the orb.

LIGHT ORB GLOW IMPLEMENTATION

How this system works is, there are certain threshold that the panic meter (which is player health in this game) has to meet. When met certain effects get enabled.

​

In this game the bar you see on the top left corner is the panic meter bar, when its empty the player is max health, when the bar is full and red the player health is xero.

This system has 2 thresholds. When it meets the first threshold, one of the post processing volumes gets enabled and effects such as the the screen becoming unsaturated , slight camera shake start to appear.

​

When the panic meter meets the second threshold, another post processing volume gets enables and effects such as more camera shake, lens distortion and pulsating vignette appear. I animate the post processing volumes through code for this to work

POST PROCESSING PANIC SYSTEM

When the player enters an area with tutorial text, it first only shows the bold yellow action text. After a delay then the text of how to perform an action fades in, this prevents overload of information from the beginning. This is a drip feeding way to teach the player to do something

TUTORIAL POLISH

LEVEL DESCRIPTION

My intended goal for the player is to enter the level and just observe for a couple of seconds.As when you just enter the level a dark vignette gets enabled to just narrow the player's vision. This also makes brighter objects more brighter.

​

So i intentionally made areas such as the safe zones and platforms having the lights orbs be illuminated with bright light. this way it encourages the player to be curious and think what's that bright area over there. This way the player is indirectly guided on what to do in the level.

SETTING THE INTENDED GOAL

One of the core elements of this level are these moving platforms. There are three types of platforms in these levels each type are color coded and move in specific set of directions.

​

​

MOVING PLATFROMS

When my lecturer was testing the game he mentioned that, When the player falls in the pit of enemies there is no break for the player as , the player cannot come up on the platform as it is elevated and the player does not have any place to retreat and take a break and analyze.

​

So one of the ways i tried to combat this is by placing Safe zones. these areas are elevated zones lit with green torches to indicate to the player that this area means no harm.

​

To make it an actual safe zone, i added a trigger collider and added functionality that whenever the player enters one of the safe zones, a semi transparent shield fades in , to indicate to the player that this area will protect you. if an enemy touches this green shield they will get destroyed.

​

So now if the player falls into the enemy pit , they have somewhere to retreat to and process whats happening.

SAFE ZONES

In Keep it light , level hub is the area , where the player gets to choose which level they want to go to and its an area where the player will repeatedly be rreturning to.

​

Due to Time constraints, our designer had to focus on balancing and game testing.

So the designer decided to make a functional version of the level hub, because at the time this was not our priority.

​

There are certain problems with this design. One every single path and door looks the same. The player cannot differentiate which path is which level. Also our tutorial environment and level hub environment is almost the same.