Moving On - A Student-Developed Horror Quiz Game
Project Type:
Student group developed narrative quiz game
Course:
University of Washington Certificate in Game Design: Game Studio Roles & Development
Roles:
UI Designer/UI Implementation, Lead Programmer, Game Designer
Tools:
Figma, Unity, C#, Monday.com
Team:
Zachary Bergman, Gilligan Cardwell, Justin Fuss, Max Oehlert, Sean Vale, Matthew Warren, Grady Wright
Project Duration:
10 Weeks, 100 Hours
Project Overview:
The Game Studio Roles & Development course challenged our cohort to split into groups of 6 and create a complete game from concept through development in 10 weeks. We were directed to develop a game for 'casual gamers' in one of the following genres/game types: Idle Game, Single Button Side Scroller, Bejeweled, Tower Defense, Heads up, Wordle, Game Show, Solitaire, or Sudoku. Beyond this, we had free rein to make all design and development decisions.
Game Pitch:
Night in the Woods Meets Who Wants to be a Millionaire in this cute yet creepy game show with animal contestants and an ominous host.
Project Goal:
Create a 1-hour long game experience and release it for free on itch.io.
Game Overview:
Moving On is a single-player narrative trivia game with a cute aesthetic that slowly evolves into a horror experience. The game is a short, punchy adventure that does not overstay its welcome, with about a one-hour playtime. Gameplay consists of alternating between quiz rounds and interview sessions where the player character chats with the game's mysterious host. As the player progresses, they discover the game's true nature: They are playing the classic game against Death, and winning is their only shot at living again. As the game progresses, the gameplay will shift with its tone, with the player not only choosing factual answers but also trying to find answers that will please the host.
Quiz and Interview Mechanics:
As the game begins, players will be a contestant in a trivia show against other woodland critters. Quiz sessions ask various trivia questions while the host and contestants show their personalities. After a quiz round is a short interview with the host, ostensibly to “get to know” the contestants, but it quickly becomes evident that there’s more going on. Moving On’s players will learn trivia as they answer the host’s silly cat questions and learn about themselves as they answer the far more sinister moral quandaries.
Game Aesthetics and Narrative Tone:
Moving On features a colorful pixel look with cute animals that belie the growing tension as the gameshow becomes more sinister. Accompanying the game's look is catchy handcrafted music that is fun and subtly creepy. The entire visual and audio aesthetic intends to give the game a deeply handmade feel to enhance the title's horror elements.
Moving On has an ominous horror tone that escalates as players progress through the game. As it was released for free online and with no recognizable developer, Moving On is poised to join the ranks of other videogame urban legends and creepypastas such as The Theater or Pokemon Black. The primary audience for these games is young teens, and Moving On will appeal to those fans, managing to be creepy and unsettling without featuring adult content that may turn them away.
UI Design:
My first task was to create a concept for the UI in Moving On. Because we decided to use pixel art for the game, I looked at some classic pixel art games for inspiration. After looking at games like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger, I found my primary source of inspiration in Undertale.
I used Figma to create all of the UI assets used in the game. Because Moving On is a narrative-based and somewhat text-heavy game, the text needed to be easy to read. This need (along with the pixel art visuals of our game) lead to the creation of the simple black-and-white pixelesque UI seen below. The use of black on white or white on black allows the colorful pixel art of the game to shine and works well for visually impaired players.
UI Implementation:
Coming into this project, I needed to gain experience in video game engines. Because our team decided to create our game using Unity, I needed to learn as much about the Unity GUI system and C# as possible. The first hurdle was understanding how to import and place content from Figma. The next (and much more challenging) hurdle was figuring out how to make the UI interactive and functional throughout the entire game. As the player interacts with Moving On exclusively through the UI, I needed to create quality animations and interactions for the player.
Game Show UI Implemented
Text Appearing Animation
Interview UI Implemented
Selection Hover Effect
Programming:
Much of the programming I did for the game was specific to UI implementation and functionality, but many other aspects of the game required C# scripts to function. A few examples include:
- The scorekeeping script (which keeps track of the player's score and determines if they make it to the next round)
- The karma score counter (a background variable that determines which of the two endings the player gets if they complete the game)
- Sprite animations
- Game audio/SFX
Sprite Animation - Answer Correct
Score Counter
Sprite Animation - Answer Incorrect
Pause Menu
Dev Tools:
Throughout development, there became a need for dev tools that would help streamline our team's processes. I helped solve two problems: dev task tracking and game build testing. To help our developers (myself and Max Oehlert) keep track of our dev tasks, I implemented Monday.com. Monday allowed us to keep track of tasks to be completed each week, keep track of our backlog of total tasks, assign tasks to ourselves and each other, and keep track of our list of 'nice to have' features.
The second problem took some work in Unity and C# to solve. I implemented a scene selection component (building off of the pause menu Max developed) that allowed our team to skip to any level throughout the game to test it directly. Before this, they would have to play through the game from the start to test any particular section.
Implemented Monday.com for dev task tracking
Scene selector implemented for testing purposes
Outcome and Next Steps:
Our team's 10-week journey with Moving On culminated in a presentation of our game to 10 professionals in the game industry. Upon receiving loads of constructive feedback, we have been working together to continue improving the game. From the development side, there are a few known bugs (including our audio controller not changing the audio of some SFX) that we are working on fixing in our next patch. As of Jan 6, 2023, we have published our first public version of the game to itch.io.