Devlog 00 - Design

Hi.

How are you? Yeah, I'm asking honestly.

How's your day been going? Your week?

Yeah. Mine too. It's okay if you aren't up to reading this right now. Take some time. Close your eyes and let the ever-present sting we all ignore fade away for a bit.

You back with me? Feeling any better? Then let me welcome you to

Leggy! the Miraculous Robotic Arm!

Leggy the miraculous robotic arm
[is / will eventually be / might eventually be]
a game about a robotic arm. It is a physics-based puzzle game featuring unconventional controls in the same vein as Surgeon Simulator.

Leggy's owner has clamped it to his workbench and asks it to do various things for him. Leggy's very important tasks include sorting the owner's tools, packing his kid's lunch, or doing his taxes. Some of these things Leggy can do well. Other things it can't do so well.

Leggy is driven to accomplish tasks by [HAPPINESS]. Leggy's core AI rewards it with more happiness for completing tasks and withdraws happiness when Leggy doesn't do tasks or a task 'uncompletes.' The AI rewards Leggy with extra happiness for completing a task correctly...but Leggy can still earn happiness for tasks that are complete-ish. Leggy's happiness value is constantly ticking down while attempting a task which means that it (by which I mean, you the player) must sometimes prioritize completing a task expediently rather than correctly. Nails in the kid's school lunch? Leggy was just asked to pack it, the owner failed to specify that only food items should be packed.

This ends poorly when the owner asks Leggy to sew the buckles back on his son's life preserver before their big fishing trip.

My name is Els, by the way.

Design Stuff

The game design document I generated has multiple sub-documents which each focus on the technical specifications for a given game development discipline. You can find that document here if you're inclined to read such a thing. Some areas of the document are fairly robust, others are somewhat skimpy. I did not expect for my weird game idea to be selected to be created which meant that I, foolishly, had zero documentation when we began the project.

I focused heavily on building a pipeline for our level designers to create puzzles. Necessity is the mother of invention and by the same turn limitation breeds creativity. I knew that the level design team would be better able to succeed if the workflow was clearly established and laid out in an understandable way. The limitations mentioned above come from a form I generated. Level designers can fill out this form to quickly propose a puzzle based on a set of minimum necessary information. From there I'm able to discuss the asset needs of the puzzle, whether it fits the dramatic elements of the game, and (most importantly) whether it seems fun to do. The full workflow is broken down here.

I also created an ALR. Still not sure what the acronym stands for and no one I've asked seems to know but the important thing is that it's a big list of stuff the game needs. These sorts of lists always trip me up - especially since our level designers are able to request additional assets for their puzzles which means that the ALR is never really 'done.' Still, I'm pretty happy with the state it's in at the moment.

I also created a flow chart for all the screens the player will see in the game, near as I can figure at least.

Here's a link to the high quality version as well.

Challenges & Solutions

Perhaps the biggest challenge we're dealing with at the moment is the fact that physics interactions are quite cumbersome in Unity. Our programming team has been burning the midnight oil working on getting a functional prototype built. This is an extremely important milestone for us because a huge part of the workflow for our level design team is to test their levels for completability. Playtesting for is extremely critical for us and it has been no small stressor that we haven't been able to do so yet. As an aside, yes, playtesting is critical for all games but puzzle games especially need to have their puzzles iterated on to ensure player understanding and enjoyment.

We also ran into a small kerfuffle regarding model poly counts but it was a minor hiccup at best.

Overall, I'm eager to see Leggy brought to life and I hope you'll come along with me for the ride.