Within my Fungus project, I have made some small tweaks that have helped enhance the overall ‘game feel’ of the piece. To start, I have replaced the default Fungus font with a pixel-style one found on DaFont (Tyler, 2010). I really like this look as I think it has a nice cohesion with the pixel art used for the characters and backgrounds (fig. 1), as opposed to the previous one which stood out too much and felt incongruous to the rest of the game.

(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. The new font used for the dialogue. I think it fits much more with the aesthetic and world of the game.

After that, I spent some time fleshing out the navigation sections, as I felt they were somewhat lacking. Going over my initial GDD for the game, I saw that the main emotion I wanted the player to feel was disorientation. While I think that this feeling is definitely conveyed in the dialogue portions, I wanted it to be more prevalent while traversing the dungeon. To achieve this, I have greatly increased the size of these sections to have more snaking and separating pathways that confuse the player, with the flowcharts topology being much more complex as a result (fig. 2). I have also added dead-ends, meaning that I had to find a way to implement backtracking. To achieve this I have created a simple menu which sits below the navigation buttons, containing a ‘back’ button. Clicking this button simply directs the flowchart to go to the previous block – a simple solution but effective as it feels like you have more agency over where you go, rather than each navigation section being ‘on-rails’.

(Above) Figure 2: Screenshot. The updated navigation with increased size to create confusion, and accommodate for dead-ends and backtracking.

I have now also implemented some colour-coding to my flowcharts (fig. 3). Red and green represent stat increases and decreases, respectively, while blue denotes the beginning and end of a flowchart. I have also added comments under relevant blocks to detail how the player’s statistics will be effected, and where certain events are triggered. All of this means that it is now much easier to understand my flowcharts at a glance, something which I have found to be beneficial with balancing the game. In the future, I will make sure to begin colour-coding my Fungus flowcharts from the outset of a project, to help with clarification.

(Above) Figure 3: Screenshot. Ego’s dialogue flowchart, now with colour-coded blocks.

Our GAM140 theory lecture for this week was focused on worldbuilding. I have always enjoyed getting lost in fictional worlds, regardless of the medium they are found in, but it was particularly interesting to think of them through the lens of games, where the world can be used to facilitate particular elements of the gameplay, and be effected by the choices of the player. Using superstructures and infrastructures as theoretical tools for building better worlds, gives the creator some good groundwork that once laid down can be built upon exponentially.

Following this lecture, we had a workshop in which we were able to use what we had learnt and apply it to our own ideas. We were taken through each stage of the superstructures and infrastructures found in fictional worlds, slowly fleshing out the ideas we had. I ended up creating a world set on a distant alien planet colonised by humans. See below for the document created during the process (fig. 4). Considering that I started without any idea for a world, I am happy with what I was able to create during this workshop. I also feel that, with some refinements and additions, I may even be able to set my level within this world.

(Above) Figure 4: Screenshot. The document written in Notepad during our worldbuilding workshop.

Following this lecture, I went down to the library and picked up Jeff’s book on quest design, Quests (Howard, 2010). While this part of the assignment is marked purely on our application of level design, I want to improve my understanding of the quest that it takes place within as that will greatly feed in to my design decisions. I have not yet finished the book, however I have already gleamed some interesting information from it regarding symbolic objects to obtain, spaces to navigate, characters to meet and challenges to overcome. With all of these working in harmony to reinforce the symbolic nature of the quest, a game’s theme and deeper meanings can be explored through the acting out of a quest’s objectives. I will ensure to take this into account when creating my own quest.

References:

ANDREW, Tyler. 2010. ‘PixelMix’. DaFont [online]. Available at: https://www.dafont.com/pixelmix.font [accessed 17 April 2021].

HOWARD, Jeff. 2008. Quests. Massachussets : A K Peters.