Roles: Game Design, Rigging and Animation, Development
Both Timbers is a comedy puzzle platform game I co-created with Elle Linares using the Unreal game engine. You play as a cat named Chablis who is seeking revenge on their rabbit neighbors for derailing a desired delivery. Use carrot bombs to blow up obstacles and lure bunnies to their demise. Reach the bunny boss and distribute a dynamite delivery to them.
Design Decisions
During the playtests of our Vertical Slice it was clear that our players wanted more back story and some tutorialization. Originally we were going to make a cinematic showing the story, but our professor urged us to make something interactive instead. What we came up with was an interactive comic strip that allowed the player to experience the story at their own pace, get information about the controls, and explore the space without fear of failure.
After the Beta playtest of Both Timbers our players asked for more interactivity in the narrative portion of the game, and based on the metrics we gathered we found that a lot of players tried to interact with the deadly items in the kitchen. We decided to create small animations to give the player feedback when attempting to interact with these items.
Early on in production we created destructible stone walls that players needed to blowup in order to proceed. When we playtested, we found that our players attempted to destroy the wooden objects in the game instead. We decided instead to make all the wooden objects in the game destructible.
We created a fire pit in the Alpha build of the game to help draw player's attention to end of the level. While this succeeded at informing the players of where they needed to go, it created confusion about how to beat the game. For Beta we moved the particles to the boss bunny character making the goal much more clear while still retaining the valuable pathfinding.
Credits
Game Design: Nicholas Linares & Michael Ritchie Rodriguez
Technical Design: Roahith Raj
Music and Sound Design: Sonia Coronado Cuesta & Kara Ford
Technical Design: Roahith Raj
Music and Sound Design: Sonia Coronado Cuesta & Kara Ford
External Assets
Level Art assets by Christian Holzer (Epic Marketplace)
Particle Effects by Level One Games (Epic Marketplace)
3D Character Models by bariacg (Turbosquid.com)
"Soft Marshmallow" font by Galdino Otten (Dafont.com)
Particle Effects by Level One Games (Epic Marketplace)
3D Character Models by bariacg (Turbosquid.com)
"Soft Marshmallow" font by Galdino Otten (Dafont.com)