Nova LEgacy (JAVA)

1st Project as Game Designer

Overview

My Involvement in the game

This is a porting project, and I joined this game in the middle of the development. Means that the game is already completed in the master device (iphone) and need to be ported to other device. In my case from SE K800 to Nokia 5800 family.

My Tasks is ranging from;

  • UI UX Redesign (From Keypad to touch control)

  • Redesign Level (Because my device family is categorized as capable device, I have an extra task to create a completely new levels which is not exist in master device)

  • Adjusting scene, level and camera. (Because of porting from portrait square ratio to landscape wide ratio lot of changes is required in all level.)

  • Creating new cinematic scene. (Yes, I also made some adjustment and creating new scene as the device is more capable, this is to improve the overall quality of the build)

  • Also Proper documentation.

Tools

  • In House Engine.

  • Excel

  • Photoshop

Look mom, I appear on the credit. XD
https://youtu.be/qiy8PiBXa6o?t=2515

Design Process

Device Differences

The Master device have a very different specs from my device. To note the difference;

  1. Game File Size, -+1MB vs -+2MB limit.

  2. Aspect ratio, portrait vs landscape.

  3. Control input, Keypad vs touch

So obviously I had to change a lot of things. Because the main issue is the aspect ratio, I try to fix the visual bugs first, then I moved to fix the enemy layout, and difficulty adjustment then scene design. And I do this for each level.

UI UX Design Approach

Since I will need to Create the UI from 0. There are a lot of things to do;

  1. I started to research first about the device limitation, and current art asset that can be reused (to avoid increasing build size)

  2. I created the UX design from information I gain, and from available assets.

  3. Start testing it and gather user feedback.

  4. Finalizing the UI asset by sending it to art team to improve or optimized the asset.

*since this is my first experience as Designer, of course there are help here and there, that give me some direction on what to do. But, I manage to do it with a very minimal direction and delivering it successfully within time limit if not faster.

UI UX Design Decisions and Reason.

  1. The position of DPad, and shoot button is the best optimal condition, for this device. It doesn't make hand sore for a long play session, also it is very easy and comfortable to reach every direction. Also it might looks a bit closer to the center of the screen, because the device is small, we also need to compromise between comfort, and screen visibility.

  2. Button transparency help to improve the screen visibility even more.

  3. Dpad is in fixed position. This is to make sure player can have same "muscle memory" feeling as they would have if playing with keypad, even though it won't be closely similar enough.

  4. Also the dpad can't receive slide input. Means that you need to lift your finger then press other direction again to register the action. This is also because the nature of the game, which is platforming, and also to boost the point 3 even more.

  5. Special action is located above the shoot button slightly to the right, for the same reason as point number 1.

  6. QTE button is displayed on the middle area of the screen, and also make the physical button itself blinking. This is to make sure that user aware that it is a QTE time, and they need to press a button. QTE icon also similar to the physical button to make it easier to recognize.

Level Design Approach

Since this device can handle more game size, so I have extra task to improve the quality of the game by adding more levels. Some of it was this bullet hell level, Campaign level. So how do I approach it?

  1. Gather narrative material from Master-master device, which is the better version. and see how the narrative plot.

  2. Since the campaign level needs to be narratively accurate. So for the world design, I follow the master-master device. and adjusting it based on my device capability, since there are a lot of mechanics not exist in my device compared to master-master device.

  3. As for the bullet hell level, I just make sure the level is fun and not too difficult to complete, since it doesn't really has any narrative component. Simply by using the rule of "How many bullet should appear in screen equals to difficulty"

Final Thought

  1. Fun and Challenging First project.

Getting a chance to involved in this kind of project is quite awesome, I love shooter game, I also like to play side scrolling game.
Combined, it is becoming great if not the best experience.

2. Moment I realized I loved Level Design

Since I got the chance to basically redesign the majority of the level, and also tasked to create few more new levels.
This is the moment I realized, I love Level Design much more. I really enjoy the moment I could create a level that quite compelling to play, both narratively, and gameplay wise.

3. UI UX Design was hard but rewarding.

I never quite confidence in my UI UX design ability. Yet, this things always follows me everywhere I go.
Even though I struggle a lot to meet up with the demand, I also quite happy that I manage to complete a Difficult task as expected by my lead without delay.

4. Get a bonus chance to be come a cinematic designer, and It is awesome!

This also one of my favorite moment on this project. Editing, and even creating new cinematic scene is quite exciting.I love the moment when my colleagues feels "wow"ed when they saw the cinematic I created.

5. Optimization is the King! Have you ever imagined creating a game under 1Mb? Me neither.

The elephant in the room. This is the biggest obstacle I've encountered on every corner.

How to create new UI without adding too much asset?
How to create a new level within the limit, yet it is compelling?
How to create a new cinematic without adding new asset yet still deliver the intended experience I want?
How to Smartly Splitting art asset so it can be reused in majority of the game?

You think this is small? no...
There are other project that needs to be as low as 200kb. :D

BUT! I now realized, this is a rare and very precious experience.

Nowadays, there are almost no limit in game size, so most of the new designers I've met, always struggle with the concept of Optimization.
My experience on this prove to be quite helpful.