Game Art & Design

Quarter 3

Rube Goldberg

28/2/26

In this Rube Goldberg machine, a cheese ball makes its way through a ridiculous contraption to get together with a mouse in a sink. First, a watermelon placed on a wedge splits in half and pushes the cheese ball into a tube. The tube, using a screw, carries the ball and drops it on a lever. The lever pushes a diverging path of dominoes into a pulley and toy car, and the ball rolls off it onto a lazy susan. The truck activates the lazy susan and the pulley pushes over a set of book dominoes. The last book falls over and the cheese ball, after having gone through a screw, rolls down it and into another set of dominoes. The cheese ball goes into a large ramp which leads into a large screw elevator. The dominoes set off another pulley, which pushes over a mouse ball into a small ramp downwards. The mouse ball goes into the same screw elevator as the cheese ball, and they both go up onto another wedge which slides them into a bucket in the sink.

rube.mp4

*any and all typos are done on purpose for comedic effect

Daily Documentation Document

What was your original idea, and how did it change as you built?

Which steps or machines were most fun or most difficult to build?

How did teamwork and role-sharing help you complete the project?

What tools or skills from the course did you use the most?

What are you most proud of in your final build?

If you had more time, what would you improve?

My original idea was far more widespread, spanning almost the whole room longways. In the end it turned into a more compact machine, but gained depth and I think was ultimately a better call. The steps that were hardest to implement were the book dominoes, as that simply took a lot of tinkering by Wolfy to finish, and the general usage of a wedge. The most fun were both the regular domino sets and the mouse-kicking-pulley. Teamwork helped create a variation of ideas and contraptions that only one person could not have created. While I do think I was too harsh on Wolfy's ideas sometimes, his unique contraptions definitely add to the whole. The skills that we used the most were simple transforms, due to the constant fiddling around with things. Besides that and opening the content browser frequently, there wasn't much. I am very proud that I got it done at all, because I thought I would run out of time and run into a hard limit. For elements, though, I think the diverging dominoes. Simple, but they had a large effect. If I had more time, I think I would have focused on contracting the build even more and making it as simple and quick as possible. The scale of it, though not huge, shoved me right into some major time problems. It also complicated the viewing experience, what with all the large boxes scattered around.

When comparing your three full recordings, what differences did you notice between them? Which factors made one run stronger than the others?

Why is it important that the machine is recorded in a single, unedited run? How does this rule affect the way you prepare and record?

To be honest, I completely forgot to get three recordings. I only got one, and that is my fault for not reading the instructions thoroughly. To answer the second question, a single unedited run is best for making sure that everything does actually work and isn't manipulated behind the scenes. It makes it harder if you get to the end and something goes wrong, because you have to record the whole thing again.

To be honest, I also forgot progress screenshots (though the thought that they might be needed crossed my mind, but i never voiced it), and the camera path diagram. I take fault for this, as much as I hate to. In the future, I think it would be better to not only read the full assignement instructions, as I should have. To make it feel less overwhelming, I should also whittle them down to a bullet-point check-list so I do not have to read through the whole page over and over. TLDR: Pay attention and take notes. I feel ashamed.

Collection of screenshots of the Goldberg machine, in order of two overviews and then the several steps.

Original diagram, hardly stuck to.

White Knuckle Review

8.3.26

Introduction

White Knuckle was released in early access to the 17th of April, 2025. It is actively developed by Dark Machine.

Gameplay

The game is based around the mouse-exclusive climbing mechanic. The left hand can grab and hold things with the left mouse button, and the right hand does the same with the right mouse button. There is also an inventory, accessed with tab, as well as standard game mechanics such as sprint, jump, and crouch. The goal of the game is to climb through an impossibly expansive industrial facility, which is devoid of friendly life. The mechanics are smooth, and every feature is done in service of gaining as much speed as possible: grabbing a hold in the wall allows you to slowly creep in a certain direction, but jumping the second you've gotten the leverage is advantageous.

Visuals

Most surfaces are grey or some dark, washed out colour. The pixelated, 3D environment makes every cube feel even sharper, and no texture is without frequent specks of dirt and grime. Heavy fog surrounds the entire game. The whole facility is industrial and rough, and the machines are only seperated by hard concrete, pipes, or catwalks. Later in the game, when you can be "outside," the facility extends outside of the player's vision, into the fog. Lights can be seen in the distance, though, so it can be assumed that the facility is encompassing the gameworld. Light is rarer the higher you go, eventually needing a flashlight. The game is defined by being gritty and grotesque.

Habitation Yellow, reaching high into the manufactured sky

Sounds

Music only plays in the main menu, and even then it matches the rest of the game: cold and industrial. The rest of the game is ambiance and sound effects, like the zipper-like jumping sound and the pounding of metal below you. Bloodbugs make a loud buzzing noise, rebars echo their impact throughout the facility, and Teeth howls like a gorilla. Sounds let you know what is where, but are also there to make sure you are on your toes, or fingertips, throughout your play-through.

Story

The story is hidden in notes strewn about the facility, and they are mostly short glimpses. Seemingly, the facility was found one day by some crew. It also might be alive, or it just has some living element to it seen in the Mass, as it seems to be able to actively change. The massive amount of human signatures do indicate previously lived lives, which are implied to have been evacuated. Without the full picture, quality of the story is hard to say.

Replay Value

The game is based on climbing as far as you can, dying, learning, and repeating that. Getting to new places is incredibly satisfying, and making it past areas you have been before at record speeds makes you feel stronger as you play the game more. As the game goes on, you unlock more room variants in areas you have been to before as well, adding new spice to help not get stale. There are also challenge rooms and two extra custom maps, both of which include some completely exclusive functions.

A section of Parasite, a custom map / game mode

Final Thoughts

This game has had a hold on me (get it?) for the past few weeks, and won't let go. While I have my frustrations, those being blood bugs, steam, Interlude: Ascent as a whole, and certain rooms in which items feel necessary, I love the way the game plays. Rebar jumping and Piton jumping (separate techniques entirely, trust me) create such a feeling of mastery when I pull them off well. Getting to a new area after banging my hands against a wall is such a thrill, but getting all the way back to where I was can be annoying.

Rating

8/10, My only gripe is that I found this game before it was finished. And I hate bloodbugs.

Review Reflection, Rad

How did your ideas change while writing the review?

I don't think my ideas changed much. I have loved this game since picking it up about a month ago, and I still love this game, despite being objectively not great at it. I would have to say that my appreciation has only increased. Going deeper into a game, or any piece of media, always makes one appreciate the details just a little more. I got to see just a bit more of what the game is made of, and I still love it.

What challenges did you face while analyzing the game?

At first I though I would have to face the challenge of examining the game while under time pressure, as a DeathGoo (official terminology) is always chasing the player up. As well, the climb to the final current part of the game is a tough one. I still have challenge getting that far, so doing so with the intent to put the game under a microscope was going to be extra restraining on my "research" (read: excuse to play White Knuckle). I remembered a little bit of information that I had gathered just a day or two before, however: a commands console, packed with cheats. Using the console, I gave myself Noclip and Godmode, and put the map on FullBright, as well as stopping the Mass with DeathGoo-Stop. These let me do just about whatever I wanted, flying around the map and taking a good, bright look at all the game had to offer. I even discovered a few secrets, which I must admit I regret finding through illegal activities

Which section are you most proud of, and why?

I have to say I appreciate the language I used in my Visuals Section. Not exquisitely refined, but quite enough to get the point across without using plainer words. I feel it describes the game well. "Gritty and grotesque," feels so accurate to the game, and to have it be in short alliteration is just magnificent. The accompanied image only serves the purpose of the paragraph even better. It shows off just about every quality of what I laid out to describe the game. I think the section could be better, but only if opened with a less direct tone.

If you had more time, what would you improve?

More time would have, above all else, let me go deeper into White Knuckle's vague lore. Only after the review did I learn about the nature of Teeth, a detail which gives a big hint as to some of the pursuits of the facility. Because the notes that are strewn about everywhere are so sparce, piecing together the lore in a short time is difficult. More time, depending on how much, might possibly give me the time to wait for the next update of the game. On that topic, the game is still unfinished. The story is currently an unfinished one, a puzzle whose pieces have not yet released. Still, what is here is interesting.

What did you learn about evaluating games?

I think I learned that it takes a much stronger eye than I have. I can see the basic flaws, obvious things like faulty enemy AI and some stupid rooms, but not too much further than that. I wish I had a better eye for these things, but I am simply not an owner of a telescope, a microscope, or even binoculars. Although, the game could just be that good. Through my time playing White Knuckle, a little over 30 hours, I have not encountered a single bug. Not an unintentional one, at least. Regardless, I have learned that a good review needs to have had good time put into both the game and the writing to be able to fully lay out the point of discussion.

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