Designer Blog #4

Hello!

And welcome back to Perry’s Pies! This is Designer Blog #4 for Perry’s Pies. Perry’s Pies is an action horror game where the player has to use various deterrents and attractions to outsmart and outrun Perry. In this blog, I will be discussing the work I’ve done during Sprint 4 and the design choices I made along the way. As stated previously, my name is Abbey and I am the Lead Designer. Brad Farris is my producer for the game. If you would like more information on what amazing and cool things the rest of my team was working on, head on over to his blog titled, “Producer Devlog 4”. 

During this sprint, there were a lot of things that I worked on. One of the first things I instantly got to work on was having a script and description document for the voice acting done in the game. Voice acting needed to be done for both Perry, the monster, and Jessie, the character that the player will be playing. It was really important that this was one of the first things I got done during the sprint because voice acting can take multiple attempts when recording, so the faster I had this fleshed out and completed, the faster and more time we would have to run takes on the acting. Having the document done and being able to record was also beneficial to my sound designer, Colby, who would then have more time to fine tune the audio and adjust what needed to be adjusted. Before writing the voice acting document, I had to do some research on how I should write it and what very important and useful details were needed. I did this because I wanted to make sure my actors fully understood what I was looking for in acting. I have had previous experience acting in theater productions, so that past experience did help me communicate what I was looking for a little bit, as well as help me envision what I wanted.

In the document, I had separate sections (for organizational purposes) for Perry and Jessie, detailing and giving some backstory on the characters to help embody them better. For Perry, I was looking for a middle to late age manly voice, because in my design for Perry I imagined him to be around that age and that is what also fits what the model looks like too. For Jessie’s section, I detailed how they are a teen in highschool, so they would have to sound more youthful and have a little bit of the attitude/language of a teen. In this document, I also provided references for how I wanted them to sound, specifically how I wanted Perry to sound. I wanted Perry not to only sound like a middle aged man, but I wanted him to also sound like a cross between Mary Shelley’s monster, Frankenstein, and the Call of Duty zombies. These references were more for my sound designer, but they did also help my actors envision what I was looking for. 

For the scripts part of the document, this was also broken up into Perry and Jessie sections. In the game, Perry would really only have two different lines, one being, “my pies?” as a question at the very beginning when he is introduced to the player and then for the rest of the game yelling, “pies” in various ways. For Jessie in game, they only speak once at the very beginning of the game, in order to set the scene and introduce the player to the lore of the game. I didn’t have a lot of voice acting that needed to be done for a couple of different designer reasons. One reason was because I didn’t want to stop the player or distract the player from the main gameplay. I also didn’t want an enormous amount of voice acting lines too,  due to a little bit of scope and having to audition and find the best fit for the acting, which would be very time consuming. 

Because I was already focusing on the sound part of the game, I decided to make a section for all audio in the GDD, too. I did this not only for those who were working on the audio and for those who would implement it later, but also so that my producer could know what I was expecting and wanting. In this section, I wrote quick descriptions of what Perry should sound like and what Jessie should sound like. I had also added a link to the voice acting document, as well, so that it could be quickly accessed by someone reading the section and needed more clarification. The audio section in the GDD wasn’t just for the voice acting, though. This section was for all the audio in the game. So aside from the V.A (voice acting) parts, I added what I was envisioning the ambient sounds, attraction/deterrent sounds, other general environmental sounds, etc to sound like. I also added main menu sounds ranging from theme song to what the buttons will sound like when being pressed. 

My 2D artist, Koda, had a really good idea for an intro of the main menu that was very sound based, so I added those sounds  to the main menu section of the audio document as well. Their idea for an intro to the main menu was that there would be a dough splattering on a counter and then a rolling pin would roll out the dough in two different directions. A stamp would then come down onto the dough and stamp out the logo for Perry’s Pies. The player would then hear a bakery timer tick a couple of times and while this is happening, the dough with the logo on it would go from raw dough colored to cooked dough color. When the dough is cooked the timer would go off and it would just be the logo. I thought this was an extremely cool and artistic idea they had so I ran it by Brad, and he concluded that it was an in scope idea.  From the start I knew what I wanted the attractions and deterrents to sound like so that description was already added in the  model asset list and was linked in this section but I wanted them written down in the GDD as well, because they are very important pieces to the game. At the end of the sprint, my sound artist was able to produce not only Perry’s dragging sound and ambient environmental sound, but was also able to create the theme song for the game which is super exciting. I think Colby did a fantastic job really getting the feeling of the game and the feelings I want the player to experience when they first see the title screen. Koda also coming up with the very creative idea of the intro to the main menu was absolutely spectacular too! [Shoutout to Colby and Koda! :) ]

After completing the voice acting script and sources of audio section for my producer, I moved on to adding more information and references for the UI assets so that my 2D artist and overall team can understand all of the details that I am looking for when it comes to the UI. These UI assets were mainly sprites needed for the player’s screen and the main menu. I also added the functionality of each UI asset, so that it would help them really understand what I was wanting. For UI assets, especially when it comes to what the player will be seeing on their screen majority of the time, I like keeping the assets as simple and easily readable as possible. I did this design specifically because the player will be chased by Perry and having UI elements that are easily able to be glanced at while in a high emotion and intense moment in the game is very useful for the player and helps them to not get frustrated. 

After working on more of the UI assets and their descriptions, I went on to document how the functionality and behavior of the elevator will be, along with how Perry will behave when it comes to the elevator. With the elevator behavior, the player will be able to press “E” to interact with the elevator. When they press “ E”, a menu will pop up with elevator buttons that the player can then press and choose which floor they want to go to next. Originally, I designed the elevator so that the player could go into it and actually press the buttons on the inside of the elevator, but this was modified due to the scope. When it comes to Perry’s behavior with the elevator, I chose to not have Perry stop when the player is on the elevator button menu. This means that if the player is being chased by Perry, then he won’t stop if they are in this menu.  I chose this design because I didn’t want the player using the elevator as a quick work around for escaping Perry. I really want them to use the deterrents and I felt that if Perry stopped when they were on the menu, then they were less likely to use deterrents. In the GDD, I also added a section for a lot of the feedback that the player will be receiving, ranging from what feedback they will receive in game and what feedback they will receive in the menus. In the feedback section, I also added why I would want this specific feedback and how I wanted it to make the player feel. 

In this sprint, I also was playtesting levels and also adjusting the player controller and FOV to how I wanted it to look for the player. When adjusting the FOV (field of view) for the player, I had to keep in mind that a chunk of the screen on the right hand side would be taken up by the player’s hand model that they can see the entire game and also see the hand interact when picking up and using attractions and deterrents. I ended up adjusting the FOV of the player to 80, which is actually around the standard that a lot of horror games have. An example of a horror game that has a FOV of 80 is Layers of Fear ( another competing game). When I was playtesting levels, I was making sure that they fit the aesthetic of the game but I was also looking out for the functionality and whether it would be doable for the player and whether Perry would be able to fit and maneuver the corridors when patrolling and chasing the player. I tested and adjusted the throwing mechanic that was done by one of the team’s programmers, Joseph, too. Joseph had made it very easy for me to adjust the values of the throwing in the inspector, which made adjusting very easy and quick. I ended up adjusting the values to have the throwing speed be around 6.5. I chose this speed because it wasn’t too slow and it wasn’t super fast like the blink of an eye. I wanted the throw  to feel like it had a sense of urgency and a meaning behind it for the player. 

Next sprint, I plan on having a lot of important things done such as completing voice acting and testing even more stuff in the levels! Thank you for reading and keep an eye out for more updates on the development of Perry’s Pies! See you later!

Sincerely, 

Abbey M.