Midnight Meatball

ROLE

Creative Director & Game Designer

DESCRIPTION

Midnight Meatball is a school project that my fellow designers and I produced. We hired fellow students specializing in animation, programming, concept art, and 3D modelling. The game's objective is that the player plays as a meatball who needs to steal furniture from their job at Okea. The reason is that he is in debt to the mob, and he needs to pay them back to save his child, who is held captive by them. Feel free to download the game below or the Game Design Document on the right.

https://midnightmeatball.itch.io/midnight-meatball

YEAR

2022

Responsibilities

“Midnight Meatball” is a school project that I oversaw and instructed
Designed the game’s core pillars, gameplay loop and mechanics
Wrote an extensive and detailed Game Design Document (GDD)
Led meetings, presentations, and distributed work to programmers
Learned and trained team on Perforce usage and best practices
Reviewed code, to make sure it was clean, organized, and documented

GDD

Download

Midnight Meatball Game Demo

The cart is a helpful mechanic that allows the player to carry more pieces of furniture in exchange for speed. The more items on the cart, the slower the player’s movement is using the cart. We wanted to allow the player an option to carry more pieces of furniture. Going back and forth with small pieces got repetitive.

We designed the cart to carry four small pieces of furniture or two large pieces of furniture, or one large piece of furniture. This is to keep a symbolism of realism in the game as smaller things take less space than larger ones. Also, to allow the player to decide, they take several pieces of furniture or one big one. We also ensured that when the cart is full of one big piece of furniture, the cart would be faster than the player dragging the piece of furniture. Helping the player and giving them a reason to use it in exchange for needing to move and control the cart.

Security cameras turn back and forth in their designated area; if they spot the player, the security guard will know where they are and head to that area immediately.

We added the cameras to give difficulty to the game. They are making the player need to time their movement and placement. The security cameras are not directly a threat to the player but add difficulty to the levels. The player needed to know where the security camera is facing and if it spotted them. In designing the security camera, it was agreed that a light to show the area of its view range was needed. Allowing the player to avoid the security camera if they choose to. The light also locked on and followed the player if they were spotted. This was to tell the player they were spotted by the cameras and the security guard is on their way.

A threat or way to lose the game was needed that added risk to the game. The player could not meet the quota by the end of the level losing, but it didn’t add enough excitement. Adding the security guard was to pressure the player to move quickly or stealthily. The player would lose the level if the security guard caught the player.

We also wanted to allow the play to outwit or outsmart the security guard. We ensured the security guard was slightly slower than the player, allowing them to outrun the guard in a straight chase. This is because the player can’t see where the guard is at all times, so if the guard suddenly pops into view chasing the player, the player has a better chance of getting away at the cost of time. The player can manipulate the guard by throwing small pieces of furniture. Creating noise and attracting the security guard to the location of the thrown object. We wanted to give the player the option to outsmart and have a sense of manipulation with the guard. We are offering the player the feeling of outsmarting the guard and being clever.

To make transporting the pieces of furniture more effortless and more enjoyable, we added the ability to throw small and only small pieces of furniture. This was designed to help cover long distances and to throw things down from other levels. For the smaller items, this made transporting them quicker and helped with the constant back and forth the player would have needed to do.

Seeing an opportunity, we also made the thrown items able to distract the security guard if thrown in a certain radius near them. Allowing the player to manipulate the guard in exchange for the small item they were carrying. This can backfire if they throw the item when the guard is too close and bring him closer to the player. The player will need to decide if it is worth the risk.

The image is a work in progress of our game level during production. I reviewed, tested and listed changes that needed to be made to the level.

One of the changes that needed to be made was the walls were too tall. As a result, the player could not see their character or the furniture. This was because the walls blocked the camera angle. Shrinking all of the walls solved most of the areas with this issue. For the rest, we placed the furniture where the walls couldn’t block their view.

Another vital level change was the load dock area. Through player feedback, they had difficulty deciding where to drop off the stolen furniture. So I designed a marked location to outline the drop-off and gave it to the level designer to add to the level. This clearly showed the players that the furniture needed to be dropped off in certain areas to count to their goal. Also, the ramps in the image to the loading dock were causing problems dragging furniture and moving the cart. Stopping the player from going up or down them quickly with furniture or a cart. The easiest solution I decided on was removing those ramps; they weren’t a key-level design and had to purpose to the gameplay.

Throughout the project, testing was one of my responsibilities.

The image is early camera testing of the position and angle we want the player to see. Unfortunately, the level designer misunderstood and made it, so the camera was 3rd person, like GTA5 or Breath of the Wild. I explained that we needed it to be a top-down view. So we allowed the player to see over walls, locations of furniture, and obstacle locations. We didn’t want this game to feel like a maze, and players could get lost.

Another essential test was with the cart mechanic. Initially, we designed the cart to have the back wheels turn; however, they said the cart was too difficult to use through player test feedback. So, we decided to allow the cart to move like a car giving easier control but slowing it down to make it balanced.