Persona
Joseph is 17. He doesn't like shooters, instead he likes to play JRPG or Strategy games. With his classmates, he chooses a game and plays Strategy games against his classmates. Some of his classmates started to hang outside, which he doesn't want to. Since he spends more time alone, he took liking to single player videogames and books, especially with fantasy and post-apocalyptic themes.
Market Research and USP
Gallienus is a Settlement Builder, that uses aspects from many genres of games, such as Survival, Strategy, Management, Choices Matter and Town Builder. Because of this combination, many players will find aspects of the game that they like and look for, and even those aspects that are more distant to them are not hard to comprehend and get used to, so they won't feel overwhelmed. Pixelart is more and more popular, and it isn't as hard to make pixelart assets. Because of these factors, and a fact that we wanted to make our own original assets, we chose pixelart as our artstyle for this game. Game is mainly meant for young adults, who crave the desire to live out a post-apocalyptic fantasy. However, even younger and older gamers will find this game engaging, be it because of pixelart graphics, that especially young gamers can enjoy, or strategical but slow paced aspect, which older gamers desire.
- 12 different ways to finish a game, be it by winning or losing
- 7 decision based finishing scenarios
- 69 events, some of which have unique event chains
- different kinds of events, be it random, threshold or triggered
- all assets are belong to us
Inspiration
We didn't want to make a typical zombie shooter for post-apocalyptic theme, and also, we wanted to use our full creative potential that we have as a group. So, we decided to make something with more creative freedom, maybe even event-based game like 60Seconds. Pixelart is relatively easy to make and we have an artist in our team, so we went with 2D. We also wanted to not have it centered around specific people, but on the group of survivors - population as a whole. Make it more abstract... So, we decided to make a settlement management. We also wanted some kind of events or choices to be made by player, and that's why we came up with an idea, to have a Radio Station as a first building block, with which player can decide what to do with it, be it play some happy music to boost the morale of the settlement, share location and maybe attract new population, or attract raiders, thiefs and bandits, etc. Also, we wanted it to be a relaxing game - meaning, that you don't have to have quick reflexes. You can think through your decisions, and what path to choose. Also, we wanted to add events, to give it more flavor and have a little bit of storytelling.
In post-apocalyptic world, there is only survivor in the radio station on the outskirts of the destroyed city. Slowly, people start to flock around this radio station and build a new town named Gallienus.
What it does
You are a settlement manager and decide how to cope with different situations that affect your settlement. Based on what you decide, the settlement may blossom and prosper, or they may lose all the remaining hope and the settlement will fall into oblivion, completely abandoned. The main purpose of the game is to win it (obviously), what can be done by thinking about possibilities, manage people and predict future a little bit.
How we built it
For UI to have correct data, we used the worst and in the same time the best thing for a developer: global state variable. It's easier to update UI according to current state values using this approach. Bigger parts of our system, which are for example caused by user's interaction are being updated procedurally.
Challenges we ran into
These are some of our biggest challenges:
- get all needed data to a certain needed places
- ensure that all UI parts display correct data
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud that we made a quite complex game in such a short period of time. Ivona made all the assets herself, be it sprites or UI, created video and made contributions to Devpost. Lukas made half of the events in the game, cooperated in creating rules and balancing the game mechanics. Stefan contributed to Devpost, made the other half of events, cooperated in pitching the idea of the game and how it all should look, creating rules and balancing game mechanics and coded. Our teamleader Jan was truly a hero as he managed us 3 remaining members of the team and also coded the biggest part of the game, made adjustment to UI and game mechanics.
What we learned
We learned a lot about team work, making our own assets, but most importantly working with Unity Engine.
What's next for Gallienus
We hope that our game will once be extended and optimalized for user's experience. It should have even more events, actions, better graphics, music and it should be more complex in general. And we also hope that the real Slim Shady will stand up.
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