Monster Mayhem is a 1v1 FPS style Deathmatch, inspired by early Quake and Doom games. The game is played as local multiplayer, with split-screen mode. The game has two different levels, one focusing on king of the hill style capture point controlling and the other on pure deathmatch.
Development
During the concepting phase, we played around with a variety of ideas, and eventually settled upon a priest and a demon goat in a battle of good vs. evil. Visually, we were inspired by stylized, low-poly games, such as Solar Ash and Overland. We focused heavily on making the main mechanics and gameplay as fun as possible while creating an eerie atmosphere with the environments.
We knew that it would be incredibly important to keep the scope reasonable for this project. The initial plan to have the game be online multiplayer was changed to be local instead. It took us quite a while to get combat that felt good to play, as it was suprisingly nuanced, but it was important to get right, as it was the core of our gameplay. We also wanted to implement very asymmetrical gameplay. Unfortunately, this proved to be too complex in the time that we had, and it was scrapped for slightly more even gameplay. However, we were able to implement two different game modes with different layouts and objectives.
Weekly in-person meetings were incredibly important in keeping all the team members in the loop as we continued development, but towards the end of the project, we had to switch to online meetings. We noticed that we should have had a playable prototype and begun playtesting earlier on in the project. Overall, despite any issues we faced, we all learned a lot about creating a 3D game, and came out with a game that we all feel quite proud of.
A great escape from the high life of the elite city to the depths of the slum – back to your people.
Isla is a platformer game with mixed 2D and 3D elements, where you take on the role of a spy who escapes through a city on a floating island. Be fast as the time is running and avoid the traps and evil robots who are sent after you by the high class of the elite.
The game features:
Mixing 2D characters into 3D environment
5 different levels with platforms and obstacles
Development
We started the project by choosing a couple of games we wanted to use as a reference. We wanted to make a 2.5D platformer game with 2D characters and a 3D environment. Disney’s Hercules – an old classic videogame, used mixed 2D and 3D elements like that and was one of our biggest influencers. That game also had areas where the character could run back and forth between different depth dimensions, and that seemed like a good idea to try in our game too. We also had other game references, for example, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, AC: Chronicles China and Indivisible, just to mention a few of them. We didn’t have too much previous experience with 3D art and we figured that making 2D characters instead of 3D would save us time. Mixing 2D and 3D elements would be an interesting experiment in any case.
The idea of a floating island with solarpunk inspired, partly utopian elite city atmosphere and partly dystopian poor lower area came quickly to us at the very beginning of planning. The prosperous but evil high class and poor lower class workers at the bottom of the city became the main conflict of the story. We wrote a script about an underground spy who gets revealed in the very beginning and starts her escape through the city with important information to people of the slums – her people. As the setting was futuristic, we decided to have robots as the active enemies of the game.
During the first weeks (and even later on) we spent a lot of time on concepts and ideation. There were multiple ideas that we had to abandon due to lack of time, for example, level six, small jump as a mechanic, a huge robot enemy in the middle of the game, a third robot enemy, 3D tree assets and so on. The basic mechanics of the game were decided quite fast as we tried really hard not to make the scope of the game too big and complicated. Despite that, after some valuable feedback in the middle of the game development, we felt that something needed to be added to give the player more of a feeling of pressure. We decided to create a timer and an hourglass collectible which would give the player more time. To make those work in the game we needed a lot of level design changes and playtesting.
Early concepts for the main character and the enemy robots.
Isla’s design went through multiple different looks and iterations to ensure she would shine as the main character.
For art stuff, dividing the tasks came quite easy to us, and everyone got to do things they enjoyed while also dabbling with something new. We knew 3D would be hard and time-consuming so we made sure most of the artists were focusing on that. Lots of voting was used both for artistic choices as well as gameplay and story aspects, to ensure fast decision-making as well as fairness.
The artists focusing on 3D had to start pretty much by learning the basics. Especially most things considering textures and materials, and importing the assets successfully from Blender to Unity, seemed to require a lot of trial and error. At least we can say we learned a lot on that rough path, and the team members were helping each other out.
Storyboarding for the intro and logo ideas.
3D process was shared through Discord.
Overall, our biggest problems clearly had to do with difficulties in the level design, and our artists being pretty new to 3D. Despite encountering multiple problems we thankfully managed to solve most of our problems and ended up with a project we’re all very proud of as our first 3D game.
Just a portion of all the sketches and moodboards we did for the game.
Team Korvapuusti
Joni Nevala– Programmer, Project Manager Ilmari Huhtanen – Programmer Janina Korpela – Artist, Project Manager Mona Westman – Artist Niina Lahti – Artist Nina Lahti – Artist Aris Helin – Artist
Deniz Kirci – Music Producer Akseli Koskinen – Sound Designer Ioana Vasilache – Voice Actor Lukas Ekberg – Audio technician
In Pookie Island, you step into the moon boots of Space Kitty, whose adventure didn’t start quite as planned. You find yourself on a planet with islands inhabited by frogs and their elemental companions: Pookies, which will help you on your journey through these islands.
We were inspired by titles such as Super Mario Sunshine, Jak & Daxter, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, to name a few. Our main aim was to make a fun platformer with puzzles and some sense of discovery, the latter one influenced a lot on how we built the world; giving the player the opportunity to explore.
Development
Initially, our scope was a lot bigger than the end product. We planned to have fully, (or at least making it look like so) walkable mini planets with a bending horizon and all different biomes, but the whole idea and how to do it slowed us down a lot at the start. We ended up ditching the planets, changing them into islands with different themes. But the concepts we had already made didn’t go to waste, as we used a bunch of it as an inspiration for the islands.
Since we knew from the beginning our world was gonna be relatively big, we set up a plan to keep the graphics fairly low poly, textures simple and utilised a toon shader to cut down the time spent on creating the assets.
Mid-development
Due to unforeseen circumstances we had to leave out some features, like enemies chasing the player, and one pookie type. Cutting things down allowed us to keep the project a bit more manageable, but still by no means an easy feat. Biggest challenge was definitely easing the player into the game and what they’re able to do. Doing open-world level design and making all the features fit coherently in different places also proved to be quite tricky.
PookieSuckazz Team Jere Joensuu – Programmer Otso Alenius – Programmer Elisa Pantea – Artist Liisa Pirhonen – Artist Karin Aimonen – Artist Katariina Paulaniemi – Artist Néd Richard – Artist, Project Manager
The game “RÄKDOLL” is a 2-4 player local multiplayer fighting game where the goal is to be the last one standing. The player can pickup a sword or a gun during the match and use them to defeat their opponent. We took great inspiration from games like Gang Beasts and Human Fall Flat.
Development:
When we first started to figure out the game idea we had many ideas for the weapons that the players were going to use. We wanted to have everyday normal objects like bowling balls and leaf blowers but had to wipe that idea due to lack of time. That’s why we went with the basic sword and a gun. For the stage theme we wanted to go with a pirate/tropical island. That’s why you can see a deserted ship and barrels on the stage.
(Early gun and character designs)
For the character we wanted to make a simple model that would have ragdoll physics. Implementing the ragdoll physics proved to be more challenging than we expected so we had to figure out a way that would work for us. We wanted the game to be purely gameplay that you could enjoy with your friends.
Hound Heist is a game by Team Monki Flip, pulling inspiration from games like Hotline Miami. You play as a dog robbing banks run by evil, corrupted mafia cats and their minions (also cats). You shoot and bonk your way through the banks, stealing as much money and gold as you can!
Development
We had many ideas for a game as the project started but the idea of putting something gore-y but cute together won and we proceeded to make a cute version of a bank robbing game.
We tried to keep the scope small because we didn’t have a lot of experience with 3D games and being too ambitious with the project could just lead to an unfinished game.
The game’s design was shaped while we were building it and most of the biggest design decisions came as cuts from the original idea. Also good little ideas and polishing features came up while we were playtesting the game ourselves.
As an example we had planned a story, some dialog and character backgrounds but quite early we realized that they need to be cut and we need to focus on the gameplay and making it fun. Another main feature in planning was a boss battle with the big cat mafia boss but in the later stages it also proved to be too much work for the time limit. The cat painting on the walls of some levels is the only thing left reminding of this feature.
When we got the core features and gameplay working it was quite easy to start producing more content to the game. More levels, 3d models and then decorate the levels. Also making the sound design was quite a funny task because many kinds of animal noises could be added.
We made a 3D, RPG monster-raising game inspired by animal crossing and Norse mythology where the player can do quests for the people of Bergensjöfellbyfjord. The player’s choices affect three different statistics – reputation in the village, bond with their creature, and money and they can unlock four different endings, two different evolution forms for the creature, and some quests based on how high their bond and reputation are.
Development Process
We had a hard time coming up with the final concepts for the game. We started by scoping too big and for a few weeks we were a bit confused about what the final game would look like but in the end, we did come up with the end goal for our project.
Artists started by creating concept art for the monsters, characters, and the world, getting the aesthetic direction down and creating more concrete samples for what the gameplay could be in the final product. Inspiration was drawn from norse mythology as well as already established monster collecting/raising franchises. These concepts were then turned into the 3D models, 2D art, and UI elements seen in the final product.
Creature ideation:
House Concepts:
UI
3D Models:
Coders started coding the basic structure of the game like movement, camera angles, dialogue system, etc. The main programmer focused on core mechanics and systems, and the secondary coder focused on minigames, worldbuilding, and the narrative design. After getting the basic working coders moved to quest systems, interactions and implementing UI.
We didn’t get the game as far as we had hoped but the team has already decided to give a few extra weeks of our free time to polish the game to its fullest potential.
While working on the game project we learned a lot about scoping and time management.
