Parasol Protocol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phCS_91PqLo

Parasol protocol started as a team project during my final year of university and was continued further for events such as 'Game republic student showcase' and 'Gamesbridge'. I had the roll of lead technical designer on the project, meaning I had a pivotal role in the direction and developent of the game as well as needing to sort through tasks that were still to do.

One of my main responsibilities was with the user interface. The goal of the game was to feel extremely polished and that meant the UI needed to be high level. I spent numerous weeks going back and forth with our UI artist, developing each asset for the UI to ensure it was pixel perfect to how it was designed. We went further with spending entire days focussing on animations with discussions on how it should work. For example one of the discussions had was on the topic of the in game pause menu, which features a company issued phone. Discussions were had on if the phone should bounce up, fade in or swipe in. We ultimately decided to have the phone spin in from the side (similar to how you pick up a phone) with a little bit of overshoot to continue the jump and lively feel we focussed on in the rest of the UI. This was also my first time learning efficient ways to UI without the use of canvas panels, using overlays and spacers with correct offsetting.

At multiple points in development we encountered issues with scope. Originally planned for each level to exist in the same world, this quickly became out of scope. We pivoted to a standard level select menu, but I pitched the idea for an over-world inspired by New Super Mario. The idea was accepted by our team lead and I began work. In the overworld, player 1 moves from tile to tile. Each tile has data which references each neighbouring tile as well as any locked doors in between them. Special level tiles were stored in another room and would absorb the camera into a preview screen that would give details on the star ratings of the level it references. Extra attention was put into returning from and entering levels, with characters running into the tubes and the doors either opening or closing. 

Each object in the game uses the same access object interface. Each object (such as a door or locked object) will have an array of objects that can open it. At begin play, the door/ locked object will bind an event to each of the 'Activated' and 'Deactivated' dispatchers in the parent class. An additional map is given to each door/ locked object, signifying how many objects needed to be activated in order for it to successfully open/activate.

After the development of numerous levels, we began to set out a clear method of creating each level. This allowed me to create additional tools to help with this process. For example, as the level was modular with a non-uniform tile system (each tile may or may not be separated by a wall/pillar), I created a tool that would speed the process of making the level by spawning new tiles, walls and doors in the correct position and rotation. Additionally, i created tools to place repeated assets such as lights. The tool would store the specific rules needed to spawn lights on each asset that needed. For example the walls needed 2 rect lights at specific places and rotations. Furthermore, if the lights were spawned in the outskirts of the level, it needed to have different lighting channels. This was done by a boolean on the tool. This shortened the previous days of work into less then an hour

Video is from 1st test of the tool. Inner level was done by Calum Short.

The game won 4 awards at the Game Republic Student Showcase

3rd Place Game Art and Animation

2nd Place Game Design

1st Place Game Audio

1st Place Level Design

The game was also made by Calum Short, Mudaber Ahmed, Josh Sykes-Ellis, Jack Hawksley, Maisy Adams, Hannah Mcmullen

Additional outsourcing was done to Ethan Weston and Tom Hickling

Some sounds were taken from meta sounds

Fonts were used from google fonts