Matthew Gai
Exhibit: L
A puzzle FPS where you're trying to avoid precious art while constantly shooting lasers out of your eyes.
The Pitch
You play as a security guard working at a museum who just suffered a neck injury and must wear a brace, making his control over lifting and lowering his head difficult. On top of his neck injury, he also shoots lasers from his eyes and he’s broken his laser protective glasses. If all of this wasn’t absurd enough, robots are breaking into the museum to loot the place and destroy you. Kill the robot enemies without destroying any art in the museum. Progress through levels of enemies in different areas of the museum, facing up against new challenges with each progressing zone!
Key Contributions
- Level Design: Planned (on grid paper), built, and playtested all levels.
- Lighting: Set up baked lighting and reflection probes in each level to add aesthetic atmosphere.
- Audio Engineering: Created a reactive system where laser SFX remained in-tune with the music.
- Documentation: Created the GDD, outlining all game mechanics and enemy behaviors.
The Laser
The core mechanic of the game is the player's constant lasers being shot out of their eyes. A lot of effort went into making the laser feel satisfying to use, providing a good sense of destruction and feedback.
While we have robot enemies in the game, they are more of an objective rather than an obstacle. The main threat is the player, as the laser is the one thing that can destroy the art, enemies, and the player themselves.
Levels
The game is split up into levels, and those levels are split up into zones. Each zone focuses on a certain set of gameplay mechanics, and each has its own aesthetic.
Coming up with levels was the most challenging process by far. Each level was first planned out on grid paper. This allowed me to quickly iterate by playing the game in my head. Then, I would make the actual level in Unity. After this, I would have the level playtested, usually bringing to light many issues I did not notice.
However, with our game being time focused, a lot of issues with the levels turned out to be fun shortcuts that players could use to get better times. Leaning into some of these, while fixing the obvious ones, gave players some more freedom with how they could beat each level.
Levels Cont.
Even after calling some levels "completed" I would go back endlessly to make sure the levels flowed well. With how our game worked, a lot of care had to be put into what was presented when going around a corner. I had to make sure I could reveal the layout of the room without having the player accidentally destroy everything. This turned out to be a very difficult task.
In the end, I learned a lot about level creation, and had fun polishing these levels to be the best they could be.
Gallery
The pictures below show how each level was planned on grid paper, and how each level ended up once built out in Unity.
Play the Game
The game is available to play via Itch.io
Play on Itch