Sweet Thieves

Roles and responsibilities:

Designer:

Designed the mechanic and rules of the game
Designed the level layout

Sweet Thieves is a 4-player party game about playing as a chameleon stealing/eating pancakes set in a terrarium. The intended game loop is to collect the pancakes and drop it off at your base, and the player who has the most pancake wins.

Genre: Arcade, Multiplayer Party
Engine: Unity
Platform: PC

Team Size: 12 People (1 Producer, 2 Designer, 3 Programmer, 5 Artist)

Concept Art:

Probuilder

Just trying out some level geometry here- really just testing out the obstacles and gauging the size of the level.

Alpha

The colour of the game is definitively eye candy and did captivate people's interest, but the game did not seem fun... :( Something was just missing from the mechanic of the game.

I felt like, at this stage of the game, the level did not succeed in presenting a game that can make a player feel:

Pressured, anxious of being chased
Excitement of stalking opponents
Enough space to enjoy the tongue lash

Level Designing- maybe we can make this fun??!?!

Designing a level layout with different patterns; used Alchemy to make these random design.
Maybe these patterns can create a fun level layout; giving players a route to chase and hide.

The intended design here was to determine an even route for players to collect the pancake in the middle and being able to escape.

MAP 1

MAP 2

The level still did not feel right; the pattern/maze was too random and that it did not seen even for all players. BUT the main concern was that the level did not fulfil the requirements that make this game fun... so back on the drawing board we go!

VENUS FLY TRAP

I felt that the game was missing a mechanic and perhaps this whatever mechanic can help shape the map and also make the players feel the way we want them to feel.

Introducing the Venus Fly trap!! And they are position at your chameleons base to defend from opponents stealing your pancake. Activate the your Venus -Fly -Trap by pressing the assigned button next to your base, If the opponent is hit by your trap, they will respawn back at their base.

The pink highlighted areas are clear paths for players to get a direct hit of the 'button' that activates the venus fly trap. This mechanic will invoke defenders and offenders to feel anxious of their opponents, this gives players a chance for a comeback if they have significant low amount of pancakes (the table can turn any minute). I truly believe this mechanic is what created the FUN of the game.

Level Prototype with new mechanic:

Beta Map 1:

At Beta launch, we got people to play test our game and we received mixed feedbacks. The major issue with our game was that there was a lot of bugs (tongue glitch, character is stuck to the environment, pancake flying everywhere etc) and the worse part was that no one played the game of how it is intended to be. Players just had fun wrapping the tongue and just messing around.

In my eyes, that was a total disaster even though people had fun because I want people to play how the game is SUPPOSE to be and the intended emotion the game will derive from a player.

Gold Map 1

Gold Map 2

What I would do to make this game better:

I would change the rule of the game to have more consequences
Example:
players with the lowest pancake count will be eliminated at every 1-2mins intervals until the last one standing. I think by implementing this rule, it will give players a reason to focus on the objective of collecting and stealing pancakes from their opponents to impede them from winning.