Inspiration
For Kickpush Quest, we were inspired by the style of 2.5d FPS games, including Daggerfall and Hades. It perfectly combined our skills—Simone's experience with 3D Modeling, and Irene's 2D art design. We combined this base idea with the theme of the compeition, Skaters, leading to a Vaporwave-esque, 90's-inspired world.
What it does
The project is equal parts a scavenger hunt and a walking simulator, with some small visual novel elements. While completing small quests and minigames, the goal is for the player to enjoy the visuals of the city. Ultimately, they're aiming to collect all of their lost belongings while engaging with the characters and setting.
How we built it
The project is majority coded in C#, through Unity. We started by splitting the work, with one person building the foundation for the game, while the other drew the sprites and UI elements.
After most graphic elements were finished, we began full collaboration on the game, with one person handling the large vital game elements like shaders & the dialogue system, and the other working on the many smaller details, such as minigames, music, and design. This was of course done with constant discussion and helping each other, contributing knowledge and troubleshooting together.
Challenges we ran into
We faced a number of challenges, most of them relating to learning C# on-the-go. Our original scope for the project proved too much to reasonably accomplish in a 24-hour timeframe, so we had to quickly recoup and outline a new plan mid-development. We also faced hardware issues with laptop crashes and resets, though luckily, no major data was lost.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Many of the videogame features we'd planned to implement, while simple on the surface, proved to be surprisingly complex. Despite this, we're both proud of how much we got done, especially as a two-person team. This ranges from the individual accomplishments like troubleshooting code we'd never even dealt with before, to the larger ones, like finishing a full game in 24 hours.
What we learned
We both learned a lot about the technical side of game dev. One team member had experience with Unity and the other did not, but being thrust fully into the process is a surprisingly good learning experience. There's also a lot of new knowledge that comes with drawing sprites, UI elements, and items, and realizing what it means to make things that will get real use in the game.
We also gained a lot of experience with collaboration and brainstorming, including how to refine an idea and cut down nonessential elements, and how to divide work fairly even when both people have drastically different experience levels.
What's next for Kickpush Quest
There's still a lot to be done with the game—some of those original features that we didn't have time for, like more in-depth questlines and character arcs, as well expanding the world and the skating feature itself. We definitely plan to keep working on it. While it's a complete game at the moment, that doesn't mean there isn't way mroe potential to uncover.
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