Lee Wei Liang
Systems Designer | Programmer
De-live-ry
Made with Unity Engine(I do not own any of the art assets used in the game)
Overview
De-live-ry is a 2D delivery game where you play as disgruntled courier(s)? obliviously delivering packages of questionable origin.
We delivered De-live-ry after 10 weeks with 4 other members and lived to tell the tale.
Design Process
Cycling Mechanic
Short Stun
Long Stun
Parcel delivery brings higher satisfaction when the courier delivers it on time or earlier. Thus, when I was discussing the implementation of this mechanic with the design lead, we wanted something that would feel right and experimented with multiple types of movement until we settled with the current movement mechanic.
We wanted to provide reward for mastery without much punishment to the player and we came up with a ramping speed mechanic whereby the player accelerates when the movement key is held until a certain point. During the speed transition, if the player collides with an object, the stun duration will be affected by the speed.
Bell Mechanic
The bell was created when we were thinking of obstacles that can spice up the player's delivery as a straight path from collection to drop off would seem too boring. Initially we placed obstacles around to slow down the player so that they would not complete the game by holding down a few keys. However, that was too boring after playtesting so we went back to the sketch pad to design a mechanic that had more depth.
We arrived at using the bell of the bike as a means to shoo off pedestrians that were blocking the way. On top of that, we added citizens who would be annoyed at the sound of that pesky bell and would also slow the player down by conversing with them. Being a part of the service sector, it would be rude to ignore others right?
Dialogue System
This was my first time at attempting to load dialogue via excel sheets so that it is easier for the design lead to edit the lines without having to dig deep into the scenes to find the game object that is associated with the lines that has to be changed.
As we went through numerous iteration of dialogue changes across the duration of the project, it helped to save time down the line and it didn't take too long to set it up so it was an overall positive for the project.
Roles & Responsibilities
Role: Producer, Technical Lead
Being the producer and technical lead in the team, I had to deliver packages containing:
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Prototypes of mechanics such as the player cycling with speed variation
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Managed taskings of my teammates that ensured things stayed on track.
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UI & UI animations integration.
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Dialogue lines that were easily modifiable with excel and exported into JSON.
Post-Mortem
We created a style of gameplay that not many have done before which made it difficult to find solutions to our problems but nevertheless, it was a very interesting first project that we collaborated with the Fine Arts major.
I have learnt that being a producer for the first time meant it was crucial for keeping everyone on the same track and that was something I needed to improve on greatly. Even though we overworked ourselves due to the passion to deliver this game, we have enjoyed the process as we felt that this was a unique product that stands out from the rest.
Thank you for reading about our work on De-live-ry!