Bugs Hot Taxi
This level was the shortest level that I worked on during my time at Full Sail, it was made for the class Game Mechanics II, and its purpose is to be the introductory level/prologue that teaches the player the abilities each bug has before they choose their bug and play the game.
Level Overview
Ant
Grasshopper
Worm
Spider
Butterfly
Pre-Production
Information
This game/demo was created as part of the course Game Mechanics II, the game was made in one week by a group of 6, the purpose of the level was to introduce and showcase the mechanics that were worked on during that week, the level itself was made in 1 day.
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The game was created mostly to showcase the mechanics and to present them to the class and professor, so the level had to showcase everything in 2-4min which is why the level is short and compact.
The game never made it past the blockmesh stage due to the short timeframe that we had.
Inspiration
The level draws inspiration from the game Grounded, since the way that they portray a garden with all the little passages between the grass and tunnels fit the vision of what we were trying to do perfectly.
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They also do a fantastic job at showing how things like grass, mushrooms, and other objects would look like from the perspective of a bug which helped me a lot while trying to recreate that same feeling of being miniature sized.
Level Design
Ant Tutorial
This is the first section of the tutorial, I decided to place the ant first since its one of the easiest characters to use, the section teaches the ability of the ant which is to climb certain walls.
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The design consists of including the wall which the an can climb and to collapsed mushrooms so that the player cant go around.
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The player cannot see what lies ahead if they don't climb the wall creating a sense of intrigue.
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Grasshopper Tutorial
The second section is the grasshopper section, the section teaches the player the ability of the grasshopper which is to jump over obstacles.
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The section is placed on the right looking at the anthill giving the player the feeling that they are getting closer to it.
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The player has to jump over two obstacles of variable height and some fallen mushrooms.
Worm Tutorial
The third section is the worm section, the ability of the worm is that it can burrow underground in the tunnels that are sticking out.
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In this section the way has been completely blocked by a fallen mushroom and the player has to go through the tunnel in order to progress.
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The player can see a big mushroom in the background and can see that they are getting closer to the anthill.
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Spider Tutorial
The fourth section is the spider tutorial, the spider is one of the most complex characters in the game, it has two abilities, the first one is that it can grapple to webs and mushrooms and the second one is that while in mid air it can do a mini dash forward.
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Due to it having two abilities the tutorial are was split in two, during the first are the player is taught how to swing and there is no repercussions for falling.
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During the second part, the player has to swing from a mushroom into a moving platform, if they miss the jump they will fall into the death webs and will die, they will be spawned below the mushroom so that they can try again.
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In this section the player is introduced to the moving platforms, the mid air dash, and the death webs.
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At the end of the section the player is left right next to the anthill and have only one more character to go.
Butterfly Tutorial
The last section is the butterfly section, its the hardest and most complex character due to how it interacts with the environment. The butterfly's ability is to fly around.
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The butterfly's objective is different than the other characters, while the others have to collect objectives scattered around the map, the butterfly has to pass through rings to extend time, but if they hit the ring they get a penalty and lose time.
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The player cannot land on the ground or they'll lose time as well.
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Due to the difficulty of the butterfly, sunflowers were added which grant the player time when landed on for the first time and lets the player reposition and rest.
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After the butterfly passes through all the rings, the final objective activates which is the purple flower, the player then need to land on it to win.
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After the player completes the tutorial they are prompted to make their way up the anthill which will teleport them to the character selection screen and into the real game.