05
Bear with Me
ROLE: DESIGN LEAD, ARTIST, TEST ENGINEER
February 2021 - May 2021
Project created with LibGDX
Project completed at Cornell University with Lucas James Cusati, Yiheng Dong, Haomiao Liu, Junxi Song, Juliane Phoebe Tsai, Xiaoyao Yao, Zili Zhou
Instructors: Professor Walker White, Professor Traci M. Nathans-Kelly
ABOUT THE GAME
A challenging platform puzzle game inspired by global warming
GENRE
Puzzle, Action
PLATFORM
Windows PC
MAC
LANGUAGE
English
PLAYERS
Up to 1 Player
FEATURES
Chunk penguins to knock down icicles to pave your way among floating ices.
Clean the scattered notes to finish a music score and rescue jailed penguins.
Traverse the world to explore the scenic background.
Global warming endangers our main characters, polar bear and penguins' living habitats. The game aims to help educate the negative impact of human pollution on mother nature and increase the overall awareness of environmental protection.
01 CONCEPT DESIGN
Concept Statement
You are a polar bear embarking on a journey to visit your penguin friend, whose a cappella group members have been caught by humans. You decide to reunite his penguin a cappella group and have them perform the penguin’s favorite song.
Explore six different continents to rescue the jailed penguin musicians by finding musical notes across a map, which act as the keys to free them from their prisons.
Main Scene: This figure shows different actions the player can take, such as walking, collecting a music note, jumping, punching a seal, and throwing a penguin.
Design Goals
CAUTION
The player needs to observe and plan strategically to collect notes and reach exits with the penguins, and the process may also involve multiple trials. Every time the penguins are thrown out, they must be picked up in order to be put into further use for the level. The player needs to determine the correct angle and strength of the throwing to make recycling possible. The route needs to be planned to reach the level destination.
CURIOSITY
The player will initially start at the north pole, where the bleak environment lacks companionship. Yet as the player progresses, various environments across six continents and more contents of the background story will be introduced for an enriched and immersive experience. In the end, an environment similar to the north pole will be restored as the player reaches the destination of the south pole for a feeling of reminiscence and completeness.
ACCOMPLISHMENT
After finishing each continent, the player will be awarded a music stem, along with a delicate change to the background music.
02 VISUAL DESIGN
VISUAL IDENTITY
The cold winter environment evokes a sense of lightheartedness, cheerfulness, delight, and curiosity. The icy surroundings are melancholy yet hopeful, urging the player to explore and get one step closer to saving their penguin friends.
TYPOGRAPHY
AMAITIC SC
Aa123
AMAITIC SC
Aa123
COLORS
#76BBAF
#B5D8Df
#B1C7DC
#94B8CF
#8DB3DE
#4F6D81
Mood Board
cute
colorful
side-view
perspective
outlines
Ukiyo E
Woodblock
Character Design
The animation will be cartoon-like, and because our game’s main character has a round body shape, we want to exaggerate the animations to help bring the game vivid and help convey motion to the players.
Animation
WALKING
JUMPING
THROWING
PUNCHING
Environment Design
The background is divided into two parts: a solid-color sky and either buildings or natural environments. There is an overall bluish tone with low saturation. Also, all backgrounds are tessellated, which means they can be repeatedly connected without gaps and overlaps.
Because the whole story takes place in the ice age, many snow elements appear in the background. Each background would also resemble each continent in the game, including certain distinguishing features of each continent.
There is an obvious distinction between the background and the water. This will be accomplished by changing the color temperature and the saturation and having a flat layer of foreground that separates the interactable surface and the background. Here is an example of the green blush doing its work.
03 LEVEL DESIGN
LEVEL DESIGN
This creates a challenge for achieving the secondary objective of collecting the notes and is the ultimate goal of our game - to rescue penguins and reform their a capella group - which incorporates the other two challenges.
INTERACTIONS
COLLISION WITH ICICLES
Trigger: A penguin touches an icicle.
Outcome: The icicle drops down, either sticking to the ground or floating on the water.
Control: The player can throw out a penguin towards an icicle to trigger this interaction.
NOTE COLLECTIOIN
Trigger: A penguin touches a note.
Outcome: When the note is collected, the penguin and note disappear, as the cost of note collection.
Control: The player can move the polar bear or throw a penguin towards a note to trigger this interaction.
FALL INTO SEA
Trigger: The polar bear falls into the sea.
Outcome: The level is reset.
Control: The player can move the polar bear towards the sea to trigger this interaction.
CONTACT WITH SLIPPERY FLOATING ICE
Trigger: The polar bear or penguins step on slippery floating ice.
Outcome: If stationary, the polar bear and penguins slide to the inclined side. If moving, the polar bear’s left/right movement will be more sensitive and faster than usual. Changing direction will be harder than usual, i.e., if moving left, a sudden change to the right will cause smaller movement to the right than normal.
Control: The player can control the polar bear to walk or jump to floating ice to trigger this interaction.
PLAYER CHALLENGES
PAVING A PATH TO THE EXIT
This challenge blocks the primary objective, as the wrong choices of icicles will not generate a plausible way to exit. To overcome the challenge, the player needs to plan beforehand. If the player hits down the wrong icicle, the player can either try to pick the penguin back up or restart the level. The player must use skills to observe and plan for the actions.
TRADING OFF PENGUINS FOR NOTES
The player has to collect all the notes to pass a level, save jailed penguins at the end of each continent, and finish the music score. Notes may be put in unreachable areas for the polar bear, which encourages the creative use of the throw action. However, the contact between notes and penguins causes the disappearance of a penguin while earning the player a note. If the player decides to throw out a penguin to reach a note, this penguin cannot be put into further use for this level. This trade-off requires contemplative planning on the usage of penguins.
04 ARCHITECTURE
Dependency Diagram
Activity Diagram
05 SOUND DESIGN
SOUND EFFECT
Custom sound effects will be made explicitly for each polar bear’s primary actions, such as walking, jumping, landing, throwing penguins, dying, and opening a penguin cage.
In addition, penguins will also have their sound effects, such as falling, bouncing on / cracking icicles.
They should be soft to keep the relaxing tone of the game. Celeste, a platforming game developed by Extremely OK Games Ltd., has sound effects that are non-intrusive yet compliment gameplay well.
Music
The game's music is meant to be ambient to create a calm environment for the player.
We will have a main menu theme, a credit theme, and then a level theme, which will be altered in the following ways:
-
Starts very barebones, with only ambiance, backing strings, and a melody.
-
Introduces a new instrument every time a continent is completed.
This will go on until all the penguins are collected, at which point the song will be fully complete to represent the growth of the polar bear throughout the journey.
One of the themes we were inspired by was a song from Mega Man ZX Advent by "Drifting Floe," which conveys a fast-paced but still ambient, self-reflective, and icy tone.