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Infinite Machina

Role:  Design, Color, Background,  UI

Genre:  2Dplatform · 2 Player cooperative
Engine:  Unity 2D

Description

In a Steam punk realm with a maze-like city, players control the little mice Jerry and a firefly to save his friends, and end the tyranny of the evil octopus. His friend is trapped in another realm, and takes the shape of a firefly to accompany and help Jerry on the way.

How to play:
One player controls character movement and attack, the other player controls the firefly to release a ringed buff area to aid Jerry in battle. There are two modes of rings, Jerry is protected inside the water ring, but can only attack when framed by the mechanical ring.

Design Process

Design Challenges

Topic:  The key word of this game jam was "limited and limitless"

We had lots of ideas, but kept risking going off track with the key words. we had to constantly remind ourselves to revolve the core-gameplay on "limits".
Should the player control the limits? Should limits be about environment or numerical elements? or is it a mere feeling set by the game play? it should not be too abstract, but not too blunt either. We decided that a 2 player collaborative game would be interesting, as each player has their own limits and has to contribute together in order to win. 

Screenshot 2024-10-10 035857.png

Art Challenges

We landed on a steampunk setting, and chose to work in a line-heavy 2D style. As a platformer, the most important environmental constraint is separating the layers: background, midground and foreground should be easily distinguishable.
With these said, color mapping and controlling the values are peculiarly important.

Initial color key had a full range of values. I decided to leave the lighter values to the foreground platforms, so the final version limits the background within a mid to dark grey tone.

UI:
UI is in a steam punk style, and uses colors to imply the connections between the bar and effects (blue ring and blue bar).

ui.png

Foreground:
All the characters and platforms are in a light value. Hazardous monsters are marked in a saturated red.

game2.jpg

Reflect & Learn 

What went right?

​Within this 48-hour game jam, majority of our team worked remotely

  • We brainstormed together in early stages. Some our members have no prior knowledge in designing game mechanics, but they provided useful inspirations and concepts for us to base the mechanics on.​

What went wrong?

  • The order in which we complete tasks could be improved. For example, I was responsible for colors and UI, but I designed the UI before I took over the color mapping job. This means the entire UI design process did not reference to the final environment and color theme of the game, and needed adjustments later on. This was a struggle in such a short game jam.

  • Next time I would leave UI design and other parts dependent on major designs to a later stage in development.

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