Mage For Hire
Solo Project at DigiPen Institute of Technology
Roles:
Tools:
Skills:
Project Goal:
Solo Project | Systems, Level, User Research
Unity, Microsoft Word, ClickUp
C#, Task Tracking, White-Boxing, Encounter Design, Enemy Behavior AI, Playtesting, Design Documentation
Create a demo-like project to go through playtest and iteration cycles
Overview
A Twist on “Wizard For Hire”
Mage For Hire is a short, solo project that was created to be able to practice C# and working in Unity, along with scope and playtest-driven iteration cycles.
Getting started, this was such a fun project to jump into to be able to write about. It is one of those projects where everything that could go wrong, went wrong. And so, this project became a practice for working within constraints, pivoting, and planning for the “if I had more, here is what we would do”.
First steps:
Due to the time constraints on this project, and it being a solo project, I decided to do a twist on a previous short-term project I was a part of, “Wizard For Hire”.
With that idea, I decided to work on creating a simple RPG-inspired demo of a mage that is doing a tavernkeep a favor, and collecting things while having to deal with pesky creatures in the cellar.
From there, we dove into getting some basic scripts up for testing, like player movement, and began on level design.
One thing that I know, but was really reaffirmed to me, is that making a game is hard.
Making a game alone is very hard. And time consuming. But also gives a good idea of what it could be.
I faced a lot of outside challenges involving the project and from life outside of my work during the timeline of this project that didn’t allow me to have the time or resources to pour into it the way that I had intended when starting, which can happen.
With this, I ended up pivoting on this project.
It became a project of, “If I could, what would I do next?” and with that, I started doing some testing and planning future iterations, for the “what ifs” of a larger team, more time, more resources.
My “If I Could…”:
For a project like this, I think the first thing I would do with the demo I current have, given more time or resources, would be to PLAYTEST LIKE CRAZY.
Step one is learning if I hit the mark, and how far from the mark I am. From there, we plan.
What I do know from my current testing is that I would want to include way more UX, specifically through animations, audio work with SFX and with particles and feedback for damage during combat.
I also feel like there could be adjustments to UI, a more dynamic feel to the dialogue system, and work to create scripts for cleaner y-axis layering for a 2D space when moving in front of or behind different objects.
Other things that could be interesting would be to expand this the way that “Wizard For Hire” was, and add more requests, new levels, new enemies.
Other potential options for this expand into systems involving equipment and consumables, more dynamic enemies with expanded AI logic within the state machine or other enemy AI behaviors, robust magic within combat, special moves, and environmental hazards.
It is always an exciting feeling to have a list of things to add to a project and see the potential within it, and this project felt like a good practice in scope, reigning things in, and fitting within the deadlines I’m working with.
Challenges:
For the level design, I wanted something that felt like it could have potentially been randomly generated, without including procedural generation without the scope of the project.
For this, I pulled inspiration from other games that use these style of levels, and created a shape that I felt would work well with my intended gameplay loop.
I then decided to split these levels into three sections, to create a sense of progression and readability for progress as the player is moving deeper into the cellar.
I used asset packs for this, just to save myself on the time custom assets would require.
This influenced some of the shape of the small level details, since I was stitching together different wall sprites to create the overall level.
What I Did Accomplish:
A collection of my rats in different level zones.
For this project, I was able to get a lot more done than I expected, but also a lot less. Coming into it, I had big hopes for what I would be able to finish, which quickly turned into the panic of not having enough time to get it all done.
That said, here are some things I did get done:
Completed level with three distinct zones, plus a beginning tavern.
Completed dialogue system that can sequence through multiple lines of dialogue… and is set up for player responses (though, those never quite made it in)
Simple state machine for enemies (idle → wandering → shooting → running away)
Collectable items
To ability to kill things and die!
It is a great step into making a demo, and also gave me a bite-sized experience to test and get feedback on for what “next steps” could be.