Games - Alex Ziwei Niu

Dice Adventure

Genre：

Adventure with Rouge element

Tools:

Photoshop & Draw.io

Platform:

Board Game

Team:

Ziwei Niu – Independent

Overview

Dice Adventure is a tabletop game with Rouge elements that can be played by 1-2 players.

The game can be played with just paper and dice. Players use random numbers from dice rolls to set up scenarios on a 13*13 map, defeating monsters to strengthen their character’s abilities and then using those abilities to escape from randomly generated battlefield situations.

The game currently features 3 characters, 2 sets of monster combinations and 6 random events.

Why I Made This Game

I have hosted many board game parties among my classmates and experienced many PVE-based board games such as Cthulhu: Death May Die and One Deck Dungeon.

They are fun, but still have these problems.

1. the need for multiple participants, but the difficulty of rejoining the game after one party has failed to play

2. the game sets are overloaded with grooming content and are not easily portable

3. the rules are too complex and can easily detract from the atmosphere if some time is spent explaining the rules before playing

4. the scripts are fixed and have little replay value and the flow is too similar each time

5. random events are poorly anticipated and appear after the player’s actions, making it too frustrating when the player is going through a normal turn only to have the game end abruptly due to a random event.

To this effect, I have analysed and studied two excellent strategy games with Rouge elements, Into the Breach and Slay the Spire, and absorbed the best parts of them to combine with tabletop games.

1. Simplifying the calculations in the rules so that players can get started quickly and with relatively lenient number requirements.

2. The ability to play with the most basic props, making it easy to have a round anytime, anywhere.

3. The use of dice to incorporate a random element that makes the experience different each time the game is played.

4. The random events are judged before the player’s actions, and the random events are specific to the scenario and the situation and do not directly affect the player’s character.

Gameplay

Dice Adventure can be played with just a sheet of paper and two dice, and players will keep breaking through a 13*13 Grid map.

The game flow is shown in the diagram:

Test and Iteration

Step 1 Prototype

The idea originally came from CALART’s Coursea online course, where one of the assignments was to design a game using a piece of paper and two dice.

Step 2 Feedback

After submitting this assignment, I received feedback from others who liked the idea of laying out the game scenes through dice, so I started to revise and test this section.

Step 3 Expedition

After expanding the map from 6*6 to 13*13, the original story background and character assignments made the whole scene seem empty, so I started trying to add more monsters and characters to try to play with two people.

Step 4 Optimisation

Optimized the numerical planning of the entire game, conceived several options for the numerical growth of players and monsters, and finally chose a point scheme that allows players to choose the timing of their upgrades.

Step 5 Game Manual

Adding art resources to make the whole game look more accessible and optimising the presentation of the rules to bring together all the parts the player has to know on a single sheet of paper .

Future Plan

The game is now fully playable and the feedback is fair, but this is still far from what I was aiming for. Therefore, I will continue to optimize Dice Adventure in the future.

I think there are still significant problems with the game in the following areas.

1. Lack of compelling backstory and visual performance:

The parts of the game that are currently undergoing a lot of iterative updates are the aspects of the map, mechanics, numerical values, etc. that are closely related to gameplay, and the game is very weak on storyline. As a result, the monster modules and player characters are somewhat oddly matched and do not provide the best immersive experience.

In the future I will be redesigning the game’s worldview, writing the backstory and setting more attractive goals for the player, as well as unifying the characters, monsters and scenery to create a more immersive world. Perhaps there will also be props and equipment added, depending on whether I can find a randomised mode more suited to board games in the future.

2. The rules are still not simplified enough:

While Dice Adventure’s rules are already of the accessible variety compared to traditional PVE board games, the arrangement of characters and monsters still requires a lot of memorisation, which obviously runs counter to the extremely simple requirements for props.

I’m still conceptualising ways to continue to simplify the flow of the game, and I think the most complicated section at the moment lies in the part where random elements are generated using dice, which could be solved by trying to use the DND dice or playing poker cards, or possibly by re-planning the map to reduce the number of dice thrown in the layout session.

3. The number of monster modules is still limited:

Dice allow for random location generation of monsters, but not random monster types, which results in repeat playability remaining limited. The way to increase the variety of monsters in the current format is to keep expanding the number of modules, however this is not a sustainable solution.

I think that eventually the monster sets will be consolidated into a monster catalogue, or just provide standard values with other trait alienation calculations, which can be customized by the player, and presented to the player with a more inclusive worldview background .

Mon-ssenger

Genre:

Online 3D Simulation Game

Tools:

Unity & Blender & PS & Procreate

Platform:

iOS/Andriod

Team:

Ziwei Niu – Independent

Game Overview

Mon-ssenger is a simulation game combined with social element. In the game, players will raise their monsters to explore their world and meet other players. Monsters in game need to be nurtured are the same as pets in reality and they will act according to their status. As players nursing, they will grow up thus unlock more activities and areas.

Story Background

Mon-ssenger Inc. created a parallel world called The Monster Dimension. Little monsters there, as natives, build a world has siliar latout of reality. They love to travel, communicate and live at ease in a carefree world. However, people in our world are suffering from tight pace of life. Numerous anxieties and fears tear people apart from each other but there is still hope.

As the bridge between 2 worlds, Mon-ssager Inc. opened ports on people’s mobile devices, gave people a chance to raise newborn monsters. They will use their own growth and experiences to help people fix connections with each other.

Why I Made This Game

I chose this background story because soical pressures has caused many people to suffer from social anxiety. They are thought to have Social Phobia. I even found that lots of friends around me are in this situation to a greater of lesser extent.

Therefore I surveyed nearly 100 respondents to discover the real source of their anxiety and found that they were actually worried about the comments came with social behaviour, especially from strangers. Below are some of the experiences shared by interviewees.

Moreover, almost all of them had actively tried to get rid of this problem, but very few had suceeded. On the other hand, they all agreed that appropriate social activities could alleviate the symptoms of social phobia.

“I don’t dare to say hello, I’m often embarrassed, I’m embarrassed for myself and for others, I’m not used to asking for help, I don’t dare to talk too much, all these things make it hard for me, but I still find it hard to overcome.”

——24, Designer, Beijing

” Going to class makes me anxious compared to online classes.”

——20, Student, New York

” It’s really uncomfortable to say hello to a familiar stranger, I don’t even know what his name is.”

——23, Illustrator, London

” Not being able to say what I really want to say, or being afraid to take the relationship further, still bothers me.”

——18, Student, Beijing

Case Study

I have analyzed 7 products in 2 categories, each of them has its own characteristics, but for the social phobia group, problems still exist.

And here are solutions in my game:

• The first one players will meet is his/her cute monster. They build relationships with monsters before meeting strange players in the game.

• Message is a core mechanism which means players can share events happened in game easily.

• Mailing behaviour is planned and encouraged with the aim of sharing and mutual support, allowing players to cultivate a social network for their monsters and creating an environment where players can communicate with each other with reasonable restrictions.

• In the end, nursing their monsters is the biggest incentive to get them back in the game.

Gameplay

Players can name, choose personalities and customise the appearance of their little monsters. As the little monster grows, it will gain more appearance customisation points and the range of its outings will improve, the random events it encounters will change, and it will develop its own preferences for things.

Monsters are at the heart of Mon-ssenger, players explore, understand and observe the world in the game through monsters, and as monsters are the only characters that players interact with directly in the game, it is important to ensure the integrity of the image of the little monsters in the first place.

Monsters Design

There are 8 personalities for monsters, which players have to choose at the bagining of the game. The personalities affect the behavioural tendencies of monsters after hanging game.

Monsters have 4 attributes and each of them affect the behaviour of monsters. Players can raise relevant attributes through postive activities while they may decrease due to some random events.

The monsters have 4 different actions that players can see the current actions of monsters via ICONs on status bar.

Players have 5 ways of interacting with monsters, all of which can be done by tapping and dragging, causing the monsters’ attributes and actions to change.

Messages

Other mechanisms

Players will find different ornamental plants, random events and quests in different seasons of the game, and the scenes in the small courtyard will change in appearance with the seasons.

In addition, players can observe monsters trigger different random events at different stages of growth, seasons and moods. Random events may bring new souvenirs, affect the properties of monsters, and meet other players’ monsters. Players will find an alert window for random events when they open the game and will need to make a choice. Some of the random events will have a series of follow-up events that tell the player about interesting incidents in the game.

Processing

Modeling

In Mon-ssenger, the furry little monsters are the main characters that accompany the players. Players can customize the appearance of the little monsters, with different optional features at different stages of growth.

In addition to the physical features of the monster, players can also choose to dress the monster in clothing and accessories that are regularly changed in the shop (in progress).

Initially, I tried to blend several scenes together, but this resulted in the camera not being able to find the right movement to switch scenes, for example, some of the hidden light sources for indoor effects would appear in the courtyard scenes. So I cut the four scenes apart. This way I can also place better plants in the courtyard scenes.

UI/UX Design

In Mon-ssenger, the player does not need to spend a lot of time completing various tasks, so I wanted to present the player directly with the most suitable interface for observing the status of the little monsters.

The shop and the postal service act as two separate screens where the player can directly discover the desired functionality. The status of the little monster will always be displayed on the top left of the screen, so that the player can keep an eye on its status in any situation. Similarly, settings can be opened in each screen.

Mon-ssenger is a game designed for mobile devices and all interface proportions are based on the screen of the iPhone X.

Project Catch

Genre:

First-Person Puzzle

Tools:

Unity & 3Ds MAX
& MS Powerpoint

Platform:

Win/Mac

Team:

Ziwei Niu – Program & Design

Baoze Wang – Art & Design

Game Overview

Project Catch is a first-person puzzle game. In the game, the player cannot directly touch objects in the scene, but can catch objects in the scene with the camera and project them in the scene again to complete the puzzle.

Gameplay Flow

Why I Made This Game

The game was a collaborative project in which I was responsible for the game mechanics and level design, programming and project resource management. The idea for the game came from a brainstorming session.

Initially we had different ideas about the game, but our goal was the same, to make a game with fun and substance. So we took this as a starting point and eventually we narrowed down the keywords to 5 to ensure the game was viable.

These five words covered the visuals, the core mechanics and the way we interacted with the game.

· Cartoon rendering – Project Catch will use this as the basis for building scenes.

· Dimensional enhancement – the logic of interaction between the core mechanism of taking pictures and projection.

· Scene Mechanics – the components that make up the levels of the game.

· Outer Wilds – we want Project Catch to have a world that is as dynamic and exploratory as it has.

· Human Motion Interaction – players can experience the game via VR/AR or Eye-tracking devices

Gameplay

In Project Catch, players will play in the first person, using the mouse and keyboard. The only character in the game is the one played by the player and the player cannot see the character’s image.

The player controls the character’s actions with the mouse and keyboard.

There are two core ways for players to interact: Catch and Project.

Gameplay Flow Chart

We consolidated the content of the game we produced into one scene, organising it into 6 levels.

We have placed three coins in this scene as points of interest and the player can choose whether to collect all of them. If the player collects all the coins, they will get a reward at the final screen.

Bonus

The bonus scene can only be accessed when all 3 coins have been collected.

This scene will show the base model we created when designing the level prototype and thank the player for playing.

Feedback

We invited friends to test the game after we had created the full scenario in order to optimise the performance and experience.

We received some feedback, some of which has been modified in the game. ColorRoom will be redesigned in the future.

Development Process

This is my first full independent unity 3D project that I have programmed alone, and there are parts of the desired functionality and mechanics that are not implemented in the playable DEMO.

In addition, because of the epidemic factor, we used online meetings to keep our production progress in sync and used github to synchronise the game files.

After identifying our game mechanics through keywords, we first extended the core mechanics of hand-drawn capture to build several GameObjects.

Based on these, we build the level by placing these interactable objects in a scene.

This white moulded scene remains in the game files to this day. Players can obtain the button to this hidden scene by collecting all the gold coins.

As the programming and art were being done at the same time, We use online Gantt charts to synchronise work progress and summarise iterative issues.

I planned the script arrangement according to the scenes and functions.

The camera UI was completely refined from a purely flat UI to a three-dimensional UI with hierarchical relationships, and button prompts were added to the camera functions.

To complete this upgrade, I needed to rewrite the script for the UI, add logical relationships to control the button prompts and the associated animations.

I used the DOTween Pro package to help with this, using the scripting API of this plugin.

Future Plan

The game currently offers a full gaming experience. The following points could continue to be optimised if given the opportunity in the future:

· Guidance Optimisation: Currently, the game has a relatively well developed solution for interaction guidance through patterns and voice. However, due to the short progression, there are fewer parts of the level that test the player’s mastery of the video mechanics.The guides and levels need to be redesigned and remapped in the future.

· More Levels: Of the 6 levels available, only 2 involve a video recording mechanic, and this has been mentioned by players in feedback. The video recording mechanic does not form a complete intro-practice-master-twist cycle within the game. This requires more levels to achieve. In the feedback, the ColorRoom is the most boring level and we need to remake that part as well.

· Human Motion Control: The game is set up in such a way that the character cannot touch objects in the game other than the camera, which we hope will allow for a more immersive experience. Motion capture is a direction that could be tried in the future, using OpenCV to recognise player movements through the camera for gameplay.