Some Assembly Required - Week 2

When it comes to game development, my comfort zone definitely lies most with texturing. Modeling and animating and UI are all fine, but creating 3D textures are where my background as an illustrator and a traditional painter get to have their moment. I created about a half dozen textures this week, working In Substance Painter to create looks for some of the arcade machines and other assets that take up space in our level. My typical method for creating textures lies in using fill layers for each element/color, and using polygon masks to designate where I want the different materials to show through. From there, I apply my alphas and generators for realism, then do a few layers of grunge, dust, dirt, and whatever other wear and tear I can think of on top.

                Something I haven’t done a lot of in game development is the back end of the programming—working out the game design and the logic of the game play itself. Working on Some Assembly Required was the first time I’ve really had a chance to dive into that and build a game from the ground up with those mechanics. Primarily puzzle mechanics.

The first puzzle in Some Assembly Required is something relatively simple and familiar to all sorts of players—a drag and drop wire matching puzzle. I wanted this to serve in tandem with the opening dialogue the player has with Bezel as sort of a tutorial to ease players into the game. I worked with Ahmed and Emma on this puzzle—Ahmed doing the programming and Emma doing the model—to bring it into the game. My role was just getting the documentation done, figuring out the logistics, and doing concept art for how each step of the process was going to go.

The second puzzle features a broken claw machine, for which you have to both collect and assemble the pieces. I designed the puzzle this way in order to force the player to explore the space around them and potentially find clues that would help them in the third puzzle as well. Once again, I did the documentation and design for everything, with Emma modeling everything and Ahmed taking over programming.

The third puzzle was by far the hardest to design. We knew from the first conversations about our game that we wanted the player to have to do some sort of coding before it was finished, and this was the perfect place for it. However, being as our game had an 80s arcade theme, this pushed the puzzle towards being assembly coding and not C# coding, which meant I knew pretty much none of the language. A couple hours of research and planning on how to balance accuracy with something that wouldn’t completely stump players were spent, and I eventually figured out the way I wanted it. Since (spoilers) completing the third puzzle opens a Murphy door in front of the player, I had the puzzle involve four values, each the alphanumeric cross reference for the corresponding letters of DOOR. I then used a line of code I found in an assembly coding tutorial that is meant to move values from one location to another to bracket that value in, so to speak. The clues for this puzzle (since I sincerely doubt anyone would ever jump to enough conclusions to get the answer right off the bat) are found on a shelf in the level, next to where some of the pieces for the second puzzle can be found.

I look forward to fine turning more of the game and seeing where all the design takes us!