Mini Game Jam - January 2021
Objective
Conceptualize a game about "attraction"
My Roles
World building, narrative, UI/HUD design
Platform
Intended for PC and Xbox consoles
Duration
Two weeks
Summary of Contributions
In my junior year of college, I took a game design course that spanned over six months. This project, Love Tail, was conceptualized in two weeks. I was working in a team of three. Over the two weeks, I developed a massive thirteen page document outlining the entirety of the game, including procedures, mechanics, descriptions of each level, and example UI. Read on to see the process!
Timeline
Game Highlights
Cats, puzzles, purring, and love? What more could you ask for? Grab a partner and choose between two adorable cats to play as. Heal the cats’ rocky relationship, solve puzzles, and overcome the challenges of love as you navigate the up summit of Mt. Ai.
Four levels, two players; felines and a complicated romance. Buckle in partners, and solve some puzzles! This game is set in a fantasy world, complete with a whimsical forest and mountain, a dark cave filled with glittering jewels, and giant fluffy clouds. Your goal? Collect memory fragments and unlock memories of the two main characters named Love and Tail so you can repair their crumbling relationship. Enjoy a cute and casual art style while you engage your brain.
Main Title
Forest Level
Cave Level
Cloud Level
Genre
3D Adventure, Casual, Visual Novel, Romance
Intended Audience
Couples, teens, adults, casual players
Game Engine
Intended for Unity
Week One
Since this game jam was compressed into two weeks, my team had to work fast. We deliberated over many different game genres, characters designs and backstories, and more before we settled on cats. Who wouldn't like a feline themed romance?
For this game, my role was to create the narrative, levels, game mechanics, and UI. I was also the author of our game design document. From there, my team began to draw inspiration from existing games:
Human Fall Flat is a 3D platformer where players can team up and solve obstacle challenges together. We were inspired by "physical" challenges and loved that the screen doesn't split even when players are playing locally.
Now for the narrative! The central theme of our game was attraction. We based the game around two cats in a relationship. Here's the catch: their relationship is falling apart. Players must navigate through a fantasy animalistic world to heal the cats' partnership.
There are two cats. One is named Love, the other is Tails, and each cat comes with unique abilities which the players unlock later in the game. Once a player begins the game, they will quickly discover with a cutscene that Love and Tails need to figure out how to be a better team in time for Unity Day, which is which is the day where all devoted animal couples journey to the top of the mountain and declare or renew their love for each other.
In this modern world where love is messy and there are many common misconceptions about it, we wanted our game to portray the message that real love takes work and it takes two to tango. This was the basis of our story.
There are four levels to the game, including the tutorial. My group wanted to make sure there was a balance between challenge and fun. Let's set some goals and define our levels:
Overarching Goal:
Heal the relationship between Love and Tails and reach the top of Mt. Ai in time for Unity Day!
The tutorial, naturally, briefs the players about how the controls work. It sets the scene with a cinematic, showing how Love and Tails are struggling as a couple. It also introduces the players to the game's challenges: puzzles and obstacle courses. The players learn they must collect memory fragments to unlock memories of Love and Tail as well as puzzle pieces, which are needed to solve specific puzzles in the game.
Objective: Helps players learn controls and gives context to the main storyline
.png)
The forest level is easy. It gets the players used to how the puzzles function. The puzzles here can only be solved when two players are both actively working together to solve them. For example, in this level, they have to fix a bridge, and while they solve the puzzle to get across, they also have to be looking for memory fragments in order to proceed to the next level.
Objective: Players must learn to cooperate and work together to solve puzzles
By this level, the players are able to tell that the memories of Love and Tails are gradually becoming happier. The cave level confronts the players with more difficult puzzles and even introduces an obstacle course for them to navigate. They also unlock the ability to "meow" and "chirp" to each other, which boosts the other's abilities for a short time, which helps them pass the obstacle course.
Objective: Players learn to use new abilities and learn how to bring out the best in each other
The last level sets the two cat lovers on a time crunch in order to make it in time for Unity Day. The puzzles and challenges are considerably harder than the past levels. Since the players have different abilities, they must work together to combine their abilities to complete each puzzle. As they skirt along a cliff-face, the level soon transitions to being in the clouds. The players run along cloud platforms where they have to solve puzzles that let them get from platform to platform. There are shifting gears and each player has to align it before they jump, collecting key fragments to open the Unity Temple at the top of the mountain.
Objective: Have players work together to beat the level and unlock a final memory
When the players enter the temple, they interact with a pedestal. The two cats intertwine tails and cement their newly discovered love for each other in time for Unity Day. For a special bonus, if the players found all the secret bonus memory fragments throughout the game, an extra sweet memory cinematic plays. Then, while the credits roll, the players are able to jump on golden cloud platforms.
Week Two
Once my group hit the two week mark, we felt confident in our progress. All we had left to do was finish up background art, prototype the UI, and polish up the GDD (game design document). I had been fleshing out the GDD throughout week one and I had a lot of fun tying up loose ends and adding Easter eggs in the gameplay. Let's take a look at the UI.
For Love Tail, the UI had to be simple. I wanted a minimalistic menu screen with clean, yet slightly feline, themed fonts. I looked at quite a few main menu screens from other games for inspiration.
Radial menus on games have always been appealing to me! I drew inspiration from Dragon Age: Inquisition and cut down on the number of options to click on. Also, as this is a game about cats, I made the dial into a paw print! Ideally I would have made a working animated prototype of it in action, but due to the time constraints, I didn't have the option. However, when a player hovers over a "toe bean", it will expand. I call it the "paws" screen.
When you think of inventory menus, what comes to mind? Is it a cluttered mess of items you haphazardly collected? Or is it a clean and organized selection? Whatever you answered, I wanted ours to be clean and simple! Once a player picks up a puzzle piece or memory fragment, the item will appear in their inventory and disappear once consumed.
Reflection
I had an absolute blast with this game jam. It had been a long time where I got the chance to sit down and just... be creative. Writing the game design document was the best part. Creating the world, the story, the character's backstory was so much fun. My group and I did some great work. If I were to redo this, I would definitely touch up the UI since my prototyping and visual design skills have increased tenfold since January of 2021.
Ideally I would have also created a more in depth description of the levels and what kind of puzzles the players would actually have to solve. I know this was just conceptual, but I would love to take this game to the next level and put it into fruition.
Linked below is the GDD. Check it out and see Love Tail in more detail. I explain the mechanics, procedures, and systems in more verbose ways inside. Take a peek!