An Emotion-Based Puzzle Platformer!
Bring Joy to Dreams...
Play as a squishy cat named "Moody", whose goal is to enter people's dreams with his "DreamLink" ability and defeat the nightmare creatures plaguing them. These dreams contain abstract weather effects that fill Moody with different emotions, transforming his body and giving him special powers to help him with platforming and puzzle-solving.
To download the game from itch.io click here.
WALKTHROUGH VIDEOS
Game Design Process
This game was made in Unreal Engine as a solo project in the span of three milestones, named under the tentative title of Project Dreamcat. Here is a summary of the Game Design process.
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The idea was inspired by platformers Like Super Mario 3D World and Super Princess Peach and Wario Land.
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I created the Level and Character Design and used UE's Geometry and Modelling to implement them into the game.
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I created the blueprinting to give mechanics functionality and enemies pawn sensing AI.
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Blueprinting was also used to give Moody squash and stretch animation, emulating the motion of a stress toy.
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All sound effects used were downloaded from Pixabay.
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Overall, the project was a worthy challenge that really improved my blueprinting, though programming enemy AI was the hardest aspect.
I wanted to create a game that makes creative and educational use of different emotions and centre puzzle-platforming around them. The emotion powers and environmental transformations were inspired by Super Princess Peach and the Wario Land series respectively. I based each emotion around which colours and abilities suited them the best.
Here is a flowchart of the different emotion transformations, their strengths, weaknesses and triggers, all coming from the normal cat in the middle.
The Normal and Calm states had the most changes. Initially, the normal cat always had the swipe attack and the Calm state was the one caused by sun rays, while being yellow and unable to attack. Later, I removed the swipe attack from the normal state and gave it the brand-new happy state to make gameplay more interesting, while making that emotion yellow instead. The calm state was later changed to green and given an attack to keep it consistent with the other emotions.
When creating the levels, I wanted to make an experience that teaches the strengths and weaknesses of the emotion powers in creative ways, while still giving Moody's pouncing and climbing moves a time to shine. I wanted to introduce the emotion powers in a safe way, building on them from there with more challenging level design before concluding them at the end (as inspired by Nintendo's "Kishotenketsu" level design method).
I had made multiple ideas for level themes such as breaking into the underground and breaking out of a prison, which were all centred around individual emotions, sometimes combining them. In the end, I decided to go with two levels that each combine multiple emotions in a creative way, as I found that more compelling for gameplay. The rest of the levels were put on hold for those reasons alongside time constraints.
For example, Level 1 was meant to be a tutorial solely centred around the use of the happy emotion to defeat multiple enemies, even blocking progression until all enemies in the room are defeated. I decided to make the level more interesting by adding the Sad and Grumpy states and centering challenges around these.
The intention with Level 2 was always to give the player multiple progression choices, but the level design was much more linear compared to the final level. To make the level more open while still being straightforward, I gave the player the choice to take one of two paths. Each path required the use of a new emotion, concluding with the use of the Grumpy Cat to defeat each Metal Enemy to open the gate to the final path. I concluded this idea by letting the player choose to cross the final path with either the Scared or Calm emotions.
The enemy movement was one roadblock I ran into. I included enemies into the project as obstacles for the player to overcome so they can make use of the emotions attacks. It was hard to make them move after detecting the player because I was inexperienced with enemy AI. Fortunately, after much trial and error and deeper research, I managed to make it functional.
This project taught me how to create attacking mechanics, include AI movement and Pawn detection to enemies, and transform my character through events, while also being a great opportunity to use my creativity. I aim to use this experience for future game design projects in order to make another platformer based on an inventive idea.
LEVEL 1- Friendly Fields
This dream depicts an island of grass, trees, stones and caverns all above the water. This is the beginning of Moody's adventures, serving as a tutorial for jumping across gaps, climbing up pink yarn walls, sliding through pipes, and of course, using emotion powers to solve various problems. Happy, Sad and Grumpy are the first emotions introduced in the game, and this level teaches their strengths and weaknesses in a safe manner.
LEVEL 2- Chilling Choices
This dream depicts icy islands around a giant glacier, where Moody must go inside to trek through icy caves and defeat giant metal enemies to unlock the path to the goal. Chilling Choices is more open than Friendly Fields as there is a left and right path to these enemies, said paths are also connected through the level's middle. The Scared and Calm emotions are introduced here and the final path lets players choose which one they'd like to take to the end.
Emotions are Power
Weather effects give Moody emotion-based abilities to defeat enemies and solve puzzles. For example, Moody starts off defenceless, but by walking under sun rays, he will become happy and be able to destroy crates and enemies with a swipe attack. There are 5 different emotions in total and they all vary in attacks and abilities.
