Ben Kershaw
Species Sprint is a racing game where the player must choose an animal to play as, each with unique traits, and complete a 3 lap race against an NPC opponent. This race will take the player around a custom designed level where they will encounter a series of obstacles and challenges to overcome, ultimately aiming to win the race and achieve the best time possible.
The objectives of this project were as follows:
- Create a fully functioning game which allowed the player to participate in a 3 lap race against an opponent
- Use intuitive level design elements to allow the player to navigate the world efficiently
- Allow for a full gameplay loop to take place, the player should never be stuck
-Create a fun and engaging experience for the player
I intended to use the Unity game engine to complete my project. This is the engine we were taught game design in in our Game Development module in third year. Unity is especially good for creating low-poly 3d games, which suited my project very well. Graphically, I wanted my game to be quite simple, low-poly with lots of strong colours which could be used to influence my level design.
The main goal of this project was to have its gameplay act as a demonstration of the research I conducted for my thesis, which can be found below. The central theme of my thesis was to do with intuitive level design, so it was very important to me that I had the correct environment to achieve the goals I was aiming for.
In the end, the project turned out very well. the finished product consisted of a well made level which allowed the user to complete a full race against an NPC opponent. The map I designed featured many obstacles and alternate paths to keep the player interested and, in testing, players found the course very easy to navigate. I was able to implement many of the concepts I researched as part of my thesis such as colour theory, shape theory and lighting. Ultimately there are a few other things I would have liked to add to make the game a more complete product, however I didn't have the time to implement these. I am very happy with how Species Sprint turned out and fully intend to do more work on it in the future.
This thesis focuses on “intuitive level design”, and how it was implemented into my game “Species Sprint”. Production of this game was completed in Unity with C#. The intention with this project was to create a game with level design that was intuitive to the player, meaning that they would be able to understand core aspects of the world design without it needing to be explained to them. They should be able to understand the core concepts of the design intuitively.
This type of level design is quite theoretical, borrowing concepts from shape theory, colour theory and abstract lighting concepts. All of these were researched prior to the start of this project and then implemented accordingly.
