Leggy Peggy
- Start Date: February 2023
- Last updated: June 2023
- Team: 2 programmers + 4 artists
- My contribution: programming (enemy behaviour, interactables, shooting, ...)
- Genre(s): Co-op, Top-down, 3D, Platformer, Action, Shooter
- Engine: Unreal Engine 5.1
- Platform: PC
For this project, we went through the entire production pipeline for making a game, from preproduction to production to polishing.
We also created a game design document and grouped our workweeks together in sprints. This was my first experience that resembled
an actual work environment.
During our brainstorming week, we decided to make a couch co-op game where one player moves and another shoots. It hasn't really been
done often before so this was quite a challenge, we needed to figure out how to make the two players work together so it doesn't feel
like both are playing a different game.
We did this by adding several obstacles, for example a jump pad. The players need to work together and make sure the moving player is
on the jump pad when the shooting player shoots the button that activates it.
We also added a stability mechanic to encourage communication even more. Every time the moving player jumps/dashes/slides or the
shooting player shoots, instability goes up. This makes it so you shoot less accurate and have less acceleration, so you want to keep
instability as low as possible. This encourages the players to communicate, discussing where they should be doing what.
For example in one area it might be better that the shooting player only shoots the most important enemies, so the moving player can make
an important jump. Or in another area the shooting player needs to shoot a lot, so the moving player needs to stop dashing for a bit.
If instability becomes too high, the shooting player disconnects from the moving player, so they have to get back together to continue.
This has lead to some funny moments.
We also submitted the game to the rookies and managed to become finalist:
https://www.therookies.co/entries/24509
