EVONITE
ROLE
Programmer, Designer
DESCRIPTION
Evonite is a role-playing game where you play as a sword-wielding slime. It was created as my final piece of work with my studies. We were allowed to create anything we wanted to show off our skills. Everything in the game was created by myself, from the level design to the pixel sprites.
Engine
Unity
Timeframe
12 weeks
GENRE
Role-playing Game
PLATFORM
Computer (PC)
The Inspiration
The inspiration for Evonite came from the games Cat Quest and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. I wanted to have pixel sprites that would rotate when the player switched directions, similar to Paper Mario, but also wanted there to be a world map you could travel across to access dungeons, similar to Cat Quest. I wanted to create an RPG title, as I had never created one before and I felt like it would be a good programming challenge for me as there are lots of elements that go into RPGs.
My Responsibilities
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Coming up with the concept idea
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Gathering user feedback, creating and adjusting iterations based on the feedback received.
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Create an enjoyable experience and make sure that the scaling of the level difficulty was correct.
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Create clean and efficient scripts for multiple game systems.
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Debug and troubleshoot issues.
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Integrated audio and visual elements into the game.
Project Goals
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I wanted to create an RPG that had elements such as sword combat and a boss fight at the end of the dungeon.
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I also wanted to create a game that was exciting for the player. I wanted there to be dungeons that would be easy for the player at first, but as they progressed and unlocked more equipment the level scaling would be fair.
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To create a level that would provide replayability for the player with the use of random loot drops.
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To make the game interesting enough for the player to want to continue playing it and progress through the levels.
Greyboxing and Early Concept Ideas
Before creating the game, I wanted to gather user feedback and ask where they would like the first level to be set, the result was an abandoned mine. I then gathered concept reference images for what I would like my level to look like, once I had gathered these I started creating my own concept art and level design. Once I was happy with it I started implementing my grey box idea, making sure to get the scale of my game correct so that the player's progression was constant.
The final design of my game will be in a low poly art style, this is because it is quicker for me to create these assets in the time frame that I have been given.
Challenges I Faced
One of the challenges I faced when making the game was the time frame I had to make it in. I would have to design, research a target audience, create concepts as well as model everything in my game. I would then have to put it all together to create something I was happy with.
I wanted to achieve so much in such a small space of time, however, in the end, I made something I was extremely proud of.
Bugs I Encountered
Sword Continually Spinning
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To fix this I created a coroutine and told it to end when the sword animation ended.
Not being able to kill more than one enemy
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I found that when I killed an enemy, in my code I had set the enemy death to true using a bool. However, this made every other enemy unkillable, therefore I revisited the code and removed the bool as it was no longer needed
Audio after enemy death
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I created an array to play different audio clips when the enemy died, however, when the enemy died the last audio clip stayed in the audio source. To fix this I created an IEnumerator that set the audio clip to null after so many seconds.
Use of Lighting
Throughout the level, I made use of the ore veins. I created two different ore that would provide lighting for the player, these would also guide the player to the boss as well as other treasures scattered throughout the level. The green ore guides the player to loot, and the blue ore towards the boss room.
Conclusion
I think this project has helped with my continuous development. I have vastly improved my programming skills with the development of this game as role-playing games have a lot of systems that need to be implemented. I have also developed my art sprite-making skills with this project, I feel like these are probably the best sprites that I have made for a game. I’m extremely proud of what I have created and think it is probably one of the best games that I have made. I can’t wait to use the skills that I have developed to keep on creating games in the future.
PHOTOS OF PRODUCTION PROCESS
Game Design Documentation
Want to Know More?
Feel Free to Read The Design Process of Evonite