Devlog 2: Prototyping and art

Hello and welcome to the second devlog of our game UnFair. Yes, we have a name now!

Working out the game design

As discussed in the previous devlog we are making a social deduction type game that is set in a fair.
During this week we fully fleshed out our concept while working on the game design document.
Here is some nice info to know.

We chose an irregular map type to get a more organic shape.
The fair includes a couple of main attractions: a ferris wheel, a carousel, bumper cars, a swinging pirate ship and a shooting booth. We can of course not forget the dunk tank to put our imposter in a time-out!

Attractions that need electricity will need to be connected by a cable to one of the generators. For these attractions it is possible to pull out (or plug in) the cable as well as sabotaging the generator. These attractions will also have a control booth. By sabotaging this, attractions can start to go way too fast.

Some tasks or sabotages are unique based on the attraction.

• Carousel: It is possible for one of the "horses" poles to become loose and fall over.
• Ferris Wheel: It is possible for screws to come lose making the ferris wheel lean over. It is possible for screws to come lose making one of the booths fall down.
• Bumpers cars: It is possible for a bumper car to fly out of the attraction.
• Shooting booth: It is possible to replace a gun with a real gun, making the NPC use this instead.

There are a couple of side buildings used by NPCs and for sabotaging: a food and icecream stand and toilets.

We also worked out a couple different task types. You will hear more about this in following devlogs.

Working out a prototype

This week we worked on a playable prototype.

Since we have a lot of mechanics, we do not have a full prototype of the game yet.
Our current combined prototype has the following features:

• Local multiplayer: Connect up to 4 controllers. Every controller controlls a different character.
• Doing tasks: This demo already contains a couple of task types, for example, pressing the correct button, holding the correct button, or button smashing the correct button!
• Pick up items: Every player can pick up and drop certain items.
• Pick an imposter: A random player gets picked to be the imposter. This person's controller will vibrate to let them know.
• NPC customers: Customers currently walk around randomly.
• A basic UI

Apart from that we made research prototypes for a day-night cycle, particles and our shader.

Working out an artstyle

The artists religiously worked on the "Art Bible". Here is a small sneak peak into what they have done.

Size does matter!

We included everything going from our food (which will also be our trash), the trash can, a generator, the size for the players and NPCs, the foodstand and the size of an attraction. Note that in this picture the size of the cabins of the ferris wheel is not to scale.

We are using beveled edges, rounded soft shapes and chunky assets to have somewhat of a cartoony, stylised style. We are staying away from anything pointy!

As a last teaser, here is the current version of our shader. The final version is still in the works.

Our plan for next week

Since we do not have a full playable demo yet, this is our priority.

While finishing off our game design document, we will focus on adding at least one fully working attraction.
After that we will test together to find out the best values for a couple of parameters: the player speed, how fast things break, the amount of tasks, how long a task should take, how easy are things for the imposter, and more.

Thanks for reading this devlog! See you next week.