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Fused
PC - Steam, Unreal Engine 4
Designer / Level Designer / Developer - Ironsmith Studios Ltd
Game can be found on Steam here
Fused is a first-person / platformer/puzzle game where the player is introduced to a cyber world that has been damaged, causing the fuses throughout the system to fail. The player must navigate through the levels, fixing the fuses as they go to bring the system back online. By using the 3 colour changes (red green and blue) the player can activate certain events within the levels to help progress through the levels. The game has been heavily influenced by Tron with art and inspiration from The Crystal Maze TV show relating to the puzzles.
The games development process:
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Working out what the game would be focused on (fixing fuses) and how the player would go about it.
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Designing puzzles, coming up with different methods of how the player will solve them and what would result in it.
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Created the character controller and built blueprints for the mechanics, such as interacting with objects by picking them
up, placing them, switching them on and off, etc.
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Building the games systems, adding three colour mechanics for boost, launch, and phase. Making sure each colour worked with the controller setup, interaction process on assets within the level (ie, launch pads) and testing to make sure each colour mechanic worked correctly.
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Adding spawn system to each level for fuses and other objects related to puzzles.
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Added electrical traps running on timers.
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Added player death and respawn.
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Designing each level within photoshop, applying each level to the GDD, updating when necessary.
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Blocking out each level, implementing the puzzles and testing them to make sure they worked with the player controller.
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Adding 3D models to the levels which I developed in 3DS Max and Blender. The emissive materials were created in Unreal 4 and then placed onto each object, giving them a neon visual. LODs were set up along with static lighting and fog.
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Animations were developed within Unreal Engine, using the cinematic sequencers and move character actions, plus multi-camera action set up for short clips of the levels activating when the player would finish a level.
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The audio was developed and placed throughout the levels. The voice acting is credited to George Turrell, the script was written by myself, and the music is credited to Adam Thomas.
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Playtesting helped with making changes and fixing issues when found.
Fused-level design - level 01 - introducing mechanics
This image below shows an early stage level design image created in photoshop and placed with screenshots of the level after it was completed. I had originally drawn the designs on paper and then created them in photoshop so I was able to add them to the game bible.
This image shows the pre-design for the first level (main level after the training level). To the left is the photoshop design created for the design document which details the different placements for traps, fuseboxes, lifts and anything else the player needs to navigate to reach the end.
On the right shows actual ingame screenshots of the levels through areas 1, 2 and 3. The final area did change to a more round shape that straight edging, as this proved to be more fun when using speed boosts. At the time of designing the level, the blue speed boosts wasn’t added. (play tests resulted in adding it)
Revision
Fused was the first game I designed and released which was a great learning process. Looking back now, I see how I would have worked the design a little different with the levels and puzzles, such as:
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Increased player movement with more obsticles on pathways.
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Re-design the puzzles on how the player interacts, as it seemed sluggish with controls.
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UI - update the user interface so its easier to see and understand.
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