Description
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Design Process
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Post Partum
duOS is a multiplayer platformer game in which you play with yourself. As the player, you control
two different characters where you can record the actions of one character, and interact with the played-back actions with the other.
From thought-provoking puzzles to fast-paced action - you will need to team up with yourself in order to overcome the obstacles!
Our two protagonists - MIA (Military Intelligence Android) and PLAT (Performance Lifting AutomaTon) are mistakenly thrown into a scrapyard.
They befriend a mysterious being who helps them break out of facility - but little do they know, this mysterious being is a wanted fugitive.
I wanted to create a game that encourages exploration of a mechanic and promotes recombinant play. In many puzzle games, there is often only
one solution to a problem - and this creates a problem for replayability and exploration. I wanted to create scenarios for the player that breeds
curiosity - always having the player ask the question of "what if?". "What if I did x with y?".
Credits:
Director/Lead Designer/Engineer - Thomas Lu
Art Director/Lead Animator - Gregory Chen
Composer/Sound Designer - Julie Buchanan
Producer - Katie Pustolski
Game Designer - Aditya Vempaty
Game Designer - Patrick Bender
Game Designer - Jung-ho Sohn
2D Artist/Animator - Hailey Marshall
2D Artist/Animator - Michelle Olson
Narrative Writer - Stephanie Henderson
Design Challenges
- There is a challenge in creating puzzles for players that specifically use the recording mechanic. We've found that if players are quick enough, many puzzles that we've created can be by-passed without the recording mechanic. Many of our puzzles that we thought of initially were solved by playtesters without the use of the recording mechanics - causing us to rethink the way we want to approach this game.
- There is a lot the players need to learn about each character before they can start playing the game as efficiently as the design team. We feel that there is a lot to learn and little time to learn it. As we continue to develop the game, we want to approach the beginning learning curve with drastically different approaches so that we gain the most optimal way to play the game.
Art Challenges
- We wanted to come up with an art style that invoked a Nintendo-type feel but we did not want to feel like a knock off. Many passes had to be done in order to make the characters look unique yet still charming.
- Environment design was a big challenge for the team since both the Art Director and I had different views on how the environment should look like. We've had many spirited debates on how it should look, and I feel that our opposing views is what brings the game to life.
Programming Challenges
- Managing data is astronomically difficult in a game that deals with time rewinding. Research had to be done in order to create the recording and playback mechanism with as little impact on performance as possible. The solution in the end was to create objects with predictable and pre-determined movement so that when playback was activated, only the first position of the object needed to be remembered so that the object will move in the same path. Recording every object on screen's position on every frame would have drastically slowed down the performance of the game.
Design Process
duOS's design process started out as an experiment on death in platformers. The initial prototype
started with a character that had to die - and upon death the character would revive and see the "past self" of them come back to life and
play back every single action the player did on their previous life. The player would then be able to play through the level again and interact
with their past self by doing so.
From that initial prototype - we decided to expand the idea more. We took what the players enjoyed most from it - interacting with themselves and extrapolated the idea further. We also decided to take out the death mechanic since we deemed it to be too punishing and circumstantial to invoke a main mechanic.
Extrapolating on these ideas, we pushed it into a recording mechanic - in where two characters help each other in order to reach a goal.
From that initial prototype - we decided to expand the idea more. We took what the players enjoyed most from it - interacting with themselves and extrapolated the idea further. We also decided to take out the death mechanic since we deemed it to be too punishing and circumstantial to invoke a main mechanic.
Extrapolating on these ideas, we pushed it into a recording mechanic - in where two characters help each other in order to reach a goal.
This section is in progress since the game has not yet been completed.