SCRAPS
Role: Team Lead, Level Designer, Systems Designer
Game Engine: Unity (2018.4.2f1)
Other programs/software: Trello, Perforce and Discord
Platform: PC
Project Completed: 2 month's | Published: No
Postmortem
Scraps is a third-person action/exploration game where you play as the Bast (a Scrapper). You the player were tasked by the Bastion (the guild) to go out and venture within the world to get valuable items for them before returning. Players will find challenging puzzles, interesting spaces to explore, and much more. There is no traditional combat, it is not about run-and-gun, twitch-based gameplay.
The things that went right during this project we’re the level design, teamwork, and our deadlines and organization. The level design was one of those things that went right for the team and me in general. I knew what type of level I wanted to create from the start so the foundation and what type of layout that I wanted to create was mostly already done. Though the functionality/mechanics changed from Pre-Alpha to Alpha due to time constraints, it still worked out in the end. Teamwork oddly enough went somewhat well, everyone was on the same page, we agreed upon how the flow of the game would go within 24 hours and how each transition shouldn’t have any ‘void.’ Deadlines and organization, this is what I pushed for a lot on this team. We used Trello to track and set deadlines on what things should be done so that we can give ourselves time to build the game, test and fixed any issues that arise.
The things that went wrong during this project we’re communication, memory leaks, and Unity and Perforce. The communication wasn’t bad, it was just lacking with some teammates that didn’t know what to do. We had a teammate who wanted to extend the terrain to the point where it was covering my level and another teammates' level. I had to step in and tell them that they had to revert to a previous save or else they would have ruined our levels. Along with that, this teammate didn’t know how to spell or read roughly so he was dependent on us to tell them everything. Memory leaks were a small issue because Unity only allows 4 GB of textures to be stored in a game. This issue was fixed a few days later after knowing we had too many textures producing over 3k quality instead of 1k or 2k. I would say Unity and Perforce caused a lot of problems within our project, when it came to importing levels or Perforce not adding in specific files, we had a lot of problems. When I imported some of our teammates' levels, some of the ID’s on the meta files changed and that caused magenta colors on some assets. We also had another group of people who didn’t know how to export scenes within Unity or use Perforce at all so that was a problem within itself.
In the end, I feel like this project was a new experience for me on how to handle leadership, set deadlines for people and manage people so that we can all come out winning at the end instead of having non-functional playable build.
About
Synopsis
It is many years in the future and society has crumbled. A wealthy few have walled themselves up in self-sufficient mega-structures known as Bastions. While the citizens of the Bastions (the “Basts)" live a comfortable life, the majority of humanity has died off. The few that remain outside live in a decayed, nearly uninhabitable chaos known as “The Wastes." The Basts ignore the Wastes, unless they want something they cannot get in the Bastion. Then they call on you, a Scrapper.
Scrappers are the brave few that travel into the Wastes to accomplish difficult tasks and/or collect rare, special, or forbidden items. It’s a difficult and dangerous job, but no one in the Wastes can pay like a Bast, and they could be your ticket out. Once in a long while, a Scrapper has been known to buy their way into a Bastion. It may be a long shot, but it is the only one you have.
Bastion law forbids Scrappers to be armed, but they are issued a flashlight and a handheld device called a "Gravnull." The Gravnull has the ability to manipulate and nullify the force of gravity in a small amount of localized space, allowing Scrappers to lift and move heavy and dangerous objects.
Genre & Theme
Scraps is a third person action/exploration game. Players will find challenging puzzles, interesting spaces to explore, and much more. There is no traditional combat, it is not about run-and-gun, twitch based gameplay. The player will start in the tutorial level, where they will learn the basic controls of the game. In each level, the player will set out on a mission of retrieving valuable items for the Bastion.
All gameplay is set in the Wastes. Most things are dirty and broken, but a few areas have survived better than others. Once in a long while, Bast technology will make its way into the Wastes, but this is rare and notable. The Wastes have been in bad shape for a long time and nature has reclaimed much of the world, so it is not unusual to see broken or collapsed buildings with overgrowth.