ENCELADUS
This game is a first-person-shooter with rogue-like elements, like a randomly generated map and loot. Set in a lunar base at the moon Enceladus, you as the protagonist must escape it, after a geyser has compromised the base. You will be pitted against Enceladus fauna as well as the base is slowly sinking, risking drowning you. Shoot your way through the base and find loot on your way that can help you survive.
A geyser has erupted and compromised the lunar base. You play as one of the crew members aboard Etna S; a base conducting research on the moon Enceladus and its inhabitants, for the key of curing Alzheimer’s disease. Now you must escape the wreckage, fighting off any creatures getting in your way with whatever weapon your luck can offer you.
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Choose between seven different crew members, each with different backgrounds and starting gear.
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Explore randomly generated maps filled with enemies and loot.
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Collect log entries from the crew to get to know what have happened and who they really are.
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Encounter different enemies with different tactics to take you down.
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Modify your gun, gear and physique as you go deeper into the wreckage.
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Feel the pressure of the base slowly filling itself with water.
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Indulge yourself in its atmosphere and try to survive the journey.
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And lastly, have fun while doing it!
It was made by a team of 17 talented game developers under a period of 10 weeks. It has been awarded with Best Technical Execution and nominated for Best Diversity Effort at the Sweden Game Awards 2019.
"Without tech there would be no games. It’s the foundation that games are built upon and it can make or break the entire experience. This game utilizes its tech to deliver an experience and develops a variety that makes every game session unique."
Swedish Game Awards Gala 2019Â citation for Best Technical Execution
MY CONTRIBUTION
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Agile project planning using the SCRUM-method with weekly follow-ups.
Establish a communication and feedback structure for the project members.
Setting up project goals and synchronization between disciplines.
Assigning team members to different focus areas for better workload and tighter communication.
GAME DESIGN
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Designing and communicating a random generation system that fits the target scope to the programming discipline.
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Design a progression system that works in a randomly generated game.
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Level designing different rooms that spawn in-game.
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Specify different AI behaviors to make enemies more varied and alive.
USER EXPERIENCE
Define the game's essence and desired user experience.
Specify the theme and narrative experience.
Applied user testing to validate the game's user experience and cognitive ease of use.
EDITORIAL WORK
Specify the thought out story element of the game.
Make sure the different characters are their own person and not stereotypes.
Ensure that the written text uphold its intended quality.
ROLE
Project Manager & Game Designer
As a project manager I've felt the importance of establishing a good communication structure and a good workload. It has also been my sole responsibility to handle any conflicts within the team and come up with solutions that works best for any conflicting parties.
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As a game designer my biggest mission have been creating comprehensive specifications on game mechanics and progression as well as a narrative. I've also needed to create a consensus within the team of what the game should be. This has included creating a "word to live by" and making sure that each individual has been on the same page concerning the theme by specification and communication.
CHALLENGES
Workload and stress
My main challenge with this game as a project manager has been how to make the team work as efficiently as possible, without inducing more stress. The scope of the game was higher than the capacity of our team at our given deadline. However, the parallelization managed to get us close to our goal, with some detail work and balancing left undone.
As a designer the main challenge was to try to design a relevant progression system in the game that felt rewarding and intriguing. Another challenge was uncovering how a shooting mechanic can feel juicy i a first-person-shooter. Sadly the these mechanics was never completed to that level of satisfaction.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Make a game worth replaying
This game has focused on replay-ability primarily. That means that every mechanic, the world and the progression need to support this. The good thing about this is that the experience can last longer, but only if there's enough incentive to play again.
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To get a replay-able game every play-session needs to feel different. One key aspect to get this was to make the world different for every run. Another aspect that I felt was important was to have a variety of enemies so that gameplay can feel varied enough to encourage replay-ability. Adding to the variation, the different enemies should start to spawn on different levels as well.
As for progression the player should feel an improvement of power, as well as matching this power with more dangerous enemies. The progression system can be split into three different categories. The first focuses on the player and how their base stats can be changed during a run, by picking up syringes to alter them and suit mods for a special upgrade. The second one is how the weapon can be modified to give better stats. My idea was to give the gun a major upgrade, which changed its properties and different mod packages that alters some stats of it. The third was how the world and enemies progress with the player. For every new level there will be more enemies spawned and new types as well, to try to match the progression of the player. As the game is a rogue-like, the different progressions doesn't necessarily have to be linear to each other, which also gives more variation to the gameplay itself.
SCOPE
Complete experience in 10 weeks
One of the biggest challenges has been the race against the clock. This has required careful planning to be able to make the deadline. My mission included evaluation of the capabilities of each team member and provide a plan that adheres to their strengths and weaknesses. The team has been split up in different focus areas to increase production, with a similar workload. This combined with follow-ups on an individual level and having evaluations of their well-being, has made sure that the workload has been as optimized as possible.
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As a designer scope has been one of the biggest concerns during development. This has led to some trade-offs in functionality versus development time. As for the random generation of the world, the choice of combining already pre-built rooms with each other was made. This implicated that the world would feel less varied, but also meant less time testing and development time for the programmers. The choice of mod-able weapons lessened work time and also gave better variation to gameplay. Each system needed to be designed with possible extension in mind. This was primarily to have a back-up plan if time ran out.
THE EXPERIENCE
Uneasy and intense
I had defined a target experience for the game that could be described as uneasy. However, since this is a group project, I wanted to see what the rest of the group thought about which experience the game should provide. Hence, to decide the target experience I let each team member write down a word that describe the experience they believe the game should provide. Then I eliminated similar answers and put the rest in a pool. This pool was then described with one word. In this case it turned into two words and was "uneasy and intense". With this I could create a consensus within the group on what type of assets and systems that needed to be created.
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As we were slightly touching on a horror theme, I wanted to exclude some typical overused aspects of it. The first one was the use of weird and scary monsters, that don't have an explanation. I rather wanted to focus on a more "natural" way to present the enemies and make them scary through their properties and behavior instead. Another aspect that I wanted to avoid was the typical "afraid of the dark"-feeling. However, due to technical restraints of not being able to bake light, the levels naturally became darker than first thought.
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I wanted to push for an immersive experience, by trying to hide the HUD and give audio-visual feedback to the player instead. The goal was to make these aspects being able to relay enough information for a player to understand what happens as well as enhance the experience. However, due to time constraints and user testing some of the elements didn't make it to the end product and was exchanged for HUD-elements instead.