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Cat-Chup! - 2.5D Casual Game

Cat-Chup is a platform-maze experience where you, Ted the cat, use your speed and wit to avoid pesky animals and collect items in time for your date.
Client:
Centre for Digital Media (School Project)
Release Date:
December 2018
My Role:
Game Design, Character Animation, Sound Design, Unity Programme
See Project Demo
Project Overview

- About Team

Project manager / Game UX - Mika

Concept artist / 3D Modeller / UI Design - Lola

3D Animator / Lead programmer - Johnson (me)

Researcher / programmer - David

*SPECIAL THANKS TO*

Jater and Wayland for helping out.

- Project Description

In this fun, light-hearted platform-maze experience, the player takes on the role of a male cat named Ted who is trying to collect the items he needs for his date Robin before she’s not available anymore. So, the goal of each level is to reach your date before time runs out and you lose the level. And the more items you collect, the better the date will go.

To do this the player must both navigate through a maze with doors and keys, and avoid enemy dogs who do nothing but chase you as you enter a certain distance from them and make you lose items. The ever agile cat Ted avoids them by hiding in bushes or boxes and moving at just the right time, but he also gets distracted and can’t help but play around if he happens to run into an enticing wool ball or fish toy.

As Ted and Robin go on more dates, the standards get higher. So, the mazes become more intricate and complex, and more enemy dogs are placed throughout. The order of the levels is set, and the player simply restarts each level when it is not completed in time. After successfully preparing for all the dates, a successful ending will result in Ted and Robin tying the knot and getting married.

- Key Features

  • Hiding in objects: Hide yourself in bushes or boxes to avoid any dogs, who cannot see into them and will return moving to their initial place as you remain there.
  • Key and doors: ​​Navigate your way through the maze and avoid obstacles, all while collecting the right keys to corresponding coloured doors to logically find your way through the maze to reach your date in time.
  • Distracting toys: ​​While your run past certain enemies, be sure to not get accidentally stuck playing with a wool ball or fish toy because those precious few seconds will cost you.
Game Play

- Controls

Controls: ​​The player movement uses a console joystick where up and down move forward and backward, respectively, and left and right turn.

Camera: ​​The camera is a 2.5D perspective at a 45 degree angle. The camera focuses on the player in the centre position, and as the player touches walls that obstruct the camera’s vision, they become semi-transparent.

- Game Objects

Game Logic

- Player Attributes

The player moves faster than the enemy dogs, and so needs to strategize how best to use the hiding objects to navigate around the enemy dogs to collect keys and collectable items without getting touched. The following are the three possibilities for each dog encounter:

  • Hide from Dog. ​​The player can time when and for how long to hide in hiding objects until the dog is far enough way to safely reach the item or make it past the area, while at thesame time trying not to waste time and lose.
  • Outmaneuver the Dog​. ​​Since the player moves faster than a dog, they can out maneuver dogs to reach the item or area they are seeking. This generally wastes less time thanhiding.
  • Go Straight and Get Hit by a Dog. ​​Since there is an element of randomness to how many items, if at all, the dog takes away, at times the player can save the most amountof time by simply letting a dog hit them and getting lucky based on the risk level.

- Visual Affordances

The player has a fairly limited line of sight, and so needs to be able to navigate efficiently through the maze. This comes mostly into play when figuring out which doors need to be unlocked first and where their corresponding keys are located. As the game is seen from a diagonally positioned 2.5D perspective, walls and objects become semi-transparent when the player comes near walls that block the view, which is where game objects may be found.

- Win/Lose Conditions

A 3-Star winning
Time out

The time limit for each level is 300 seconds, and the player loses whenever the timer is up and they have not reached the date, and wins if they reach their date before the time is up. In addition, for each level the player can earn more bonus stars the more collectable items they get. If players don't get enough stars, they will be unable to unlock next level. The following table indicates how many stars the player can earn relative to how many collectable items are obtained.

- Navigation & Collection

Players need to not only navigate through a traditional maze in a time limit, but also find keys corresponding to same colour doors in the right order in order to reach the goal.

- Avoiding AI Dogs (Raycast)

Besides the navigation the player needs to strategize how best to avoid territorial dogs who cause them to lose items when touched through the logic described above. The AI dogs are using raycast function, which will chase you only when ray connection is clear and no obstacles.

- Game Progression

The initial level has three doors and keys. As the game progresses the mazes become more complex and larger with more doors and keys that the player needs to navigate and collect items in. Thus, reaching the date and collecting all five collectable items will become increasingly more difficult to accomplish with the constant 300 second time limit.

Art & Design Direction

- Story and Setting

Ted and Robin were lonely cats who roamed around the city they live in. Then one day Ted metRobin and they hit it off, as cats do, and Robin agreed to go another dates with Ted. So, Ted needs to collect items for future dates and meet Robin at different locations around the city.

Each level is the precursor to a date with Robin, and as the game progresses the expectations for the date locations become higher and higher such that Ted needs to navigate through more and more difficult and complex areas to reach Robin in time.

- Environment

Concept-1
Concept-2

Cat-Chup’s environments explore various famous sites around New York City, including Central Park, Yankee Stadium, the Guggenheim Museum, the Empire State Building, the Tiffany Store, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, and Rockefeller Center.

- Characters & Objects

Character - Ted
Character - Robin

Since the perspective is that of a cat, objects found in the game are those common to cats, including ​bushes and ​boxes t​​ o hide in from enemy dogs, ​wool ​balls and ​cardboard boxes ​​that distract the player for precious seconds, ​fish cans to provide food for dates, and ​milk bottles to provide drinks for dates. As it common for maze and/or puzzle games, each level contains a number of coloured ​keys that are used to unlock doors with the corresponding colour. The key aesthetics resemble generic cartoon keys.

The ​cats Ted and Robin and the enemy ​dogs are minimalist characters, given the light-hearted low-poly feel of the game. Because they are to be feared and have a brute, non-reflecting attitude to defend their territory, the dogs have menacing “X” eyes and pointy teeth.

- UI and Buttons

Cat-Chup employs simple affordances and metaphors to provide a gameplay experience with minimal text. Accordingly, when Ted is distracted by a wool-ball or fish toy, confusion rings appear above the character for the duration of the pause. And when Ted comes within the 200 pixel radius of a dog, a red, high energy colour, box with an exclamation mark appears to warn the player of danger. For each level completed, a “well done” message appears, where up to three stars maybe earned, according to the table given above. At the beginning of each level, a panel will display indicating what and how many of each item the level contains, which will be indicated in the UI during gameplay as well.

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About Me

I am an interdisciplinary designer who is keen on seeking for innovative and user-centred ways of building cutting-edge digital products. 

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