Nigel: The Mad Composer

Created by: Charlie Nevitt, Soland Chen, Fiana Li and Eli Graham

Follow our protagonist Nigel, a mouse who descends into madness as he searches for the perfect melody. Maneuver fast moving platforms, solve weird puzzles and defeat hard bosses as you change the melody of your environment to what you need.

What is the Project?

With the assistance of Soland, Fiana and Eli, we managed to create a 2d platformer where the music dictates where the platforms go. This was created in Unity, Photoshop and Ableton over a period of 6 months as a slice of a game we would go further with. In this game you play as a mouse, Nigel and hop between platforms with precise movement, controlling the music along the way, ending in a boss fight against the great cheese.

Scene1.mp4

Ideation

At the beginning of this process, we knew we wanted one thing: music. And not just thoughts of background music but we wanted to create a game where the music effected how the player played the game. In the beginning we were thinking of a type of metroidvania, a platformer that uses combat and the player would have to use a parry system I designed to survive that moved to the beat.

ParrySystem.mp4

Though upon further investigation became rather tricky and convoluted and timing everything to the beat seemed rather difficult. So as a group we decided to just make it into a platformer.

With all these moving pieces moving around we decided on a platformer where the environment changed as the player needed it to based on the music. This was the player would have control over their surroundings but not full control

Attributions of Charlie Nevitt

Code Attributions

Movement

Assisting Soland Chen, we designed the player controller script to be simple. Creating a game based off of timing we didn't want anything to be overly complicated and thus wanted to keep it simple. We gave the player simple movements where they could move left and right, jump and dash with a lot of my work for the movement going into the dash mechanic. It couldn't give the player too far of a boost as well as needed to feel like the mouse's other movement would be halted till the dash is complete, I.E. no more upward or downward momentum during the dash.

I also assisted in making the movement more snappy. Being that we were making a platformer, we wanted movements to feel precise and with a few tweaks to forces, that was accomplished.

Controller

When considering a controller for any game, developers got to consider what controller will work best for their game. Arcade cabinets usually have simple input so they don't need any more than a control stick. For first person shooters they want fast reflexes, usually resulting in the use of mouse and keyboard. For games such as Nigel, we want something that feels proper in 2d but can handle a multitude of inputs and thus we landed on a controller, specifically an Xbox or Playstation controller as those are common mainstream controllers.

To do this I used unity's input system, a wonderful tool setup by unity to get different type of inputs and then changed a lot of our code to make it happen. The game also works on keyboard as we originally designed but if you play it that way, it'll definitely feel clunkier.

Controller.mov

Platforms

Working with Eli Graham, we created all the moving platforms that exist in the game. He created the beat manager they all move too as well as platforms moving between too beats and I created all unique platforms. This contains platforms such as Sin wave platforms, shooting spears, damaging pillars and falling platforms. All these serve as challenges for the player to overcome and move to the beat a little bit differently than the standard back and forward.

Platforms spawned as a unique challenge for the player. Upon switching between tracks the sine wave will begin to go in the opposite y-direction. The sine platform moves until it hits a despawn point.

sinSpawn.mp4

Pillars used in the boss fight to deal damage to the boss and becomes an obstacle for the player to avoid. They come down at different paces with the beat.

SinePlatforms.mp4

Spear platforms that shoot out and can either hit and damage the player or hit a wall and become a platform for the player to use.

Spears_2.0.mp4

Falling platforms for the player to challenge the player to move before the platform is dropped.

SpawnFallingPlatforms.mp4

Boss Level

With the help of Soland Chen on animations and Fiana Li on Music, I was give full freedom to design and develop the boss fight in our game. The one thing I knew I wanted in the beginning was that sine we were going with a mouse protagonist, I wanted a cheese boss (namely cause it seemed funny). Though with our combat system originally removed (look at ideation) there needed to be a different way to progress through the boss. And with us already going with the platforms that can damage the player, what if they could damage the boss too? While fun in practice it ended up being slightly dull in execution due to this being the last part I was working on. A lot of movie pieces with an boss manager component controlling it all, you truly can fight the mad cheese.

Level Designs

Before any part of the level was done in unity, I designed the level. A big focus for each part was what mechanics do we want to introduce when. Also with all the moving platforms how can we keep it fun and enjoyable without feeling repetitive.

Level 1 - Childhood room

This serves as more of a tutorial level. We first wanted to start the game out with no music rolling to allow the player to understand the controls. With simple jumps and dashes you get to the point in the level where the music begins, the platforms move, and the player finally understands how this game works.

Wireframe for level 1

Level 2 - Under the bed

Follow up to level 1, we introduce the madness mechanic, a part where the song changes and the way the platforms move changes as well. This is what we wanted to be the meat of our game having our players go through complicated platforming and its where a lot of the complicated platforms I created come in to play.

Wireframe for level 2

Level 3 - Cheese Boss

If I had more time to develop, this is the part of the game I would invest more time into. I wanted the boss to have as much control in the environment and as such the music but implementing that with everything else in a 6 month time period would've been insane. With what we got, the boss has cool music, can easily damage the player and is tricky enough to kill. I put 3 different attacks with 2 different environment hazards into the game as ways to harm the boss.

Other

Public Relations

For this project, we had to run play tests and talk with coaches to get us along the process and make sure we were in good spots. While none said anything incredibly unexpected, they were helpful in the longevity of the game. While other members of the team would show up to one or two meetings/playtests, I ran the majority to try and make our game feel better

User Interface

Though simple, I designed the UI in the game to be understandable and simple so the player would know what was happening. As we were mouse themed, I thought I'd keep it similar.

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