SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
Hello, my name is Christian Ignacio and I'm a UX Designer based in Seattle, WA.
The Legend of Cucco
Pixel Platform Game
Overview
The Legend of Cucco is an interactive side-scroller that was developed using the Construct 2 game engine. This game was developed by students from the University of Washington Bothell featuring an alternate universe of the Legend of Zelda franchise. Instead of playing Link, the beloved sword wielding hero, you play as the whimsical chicken, Cucco, to beat the evil Ganon.
This game was a final project for course BIS Introduction to Interactive Media Design in practicing transmedia storytelling through game development.
Team
1 Game Writer, 1 Full-Stack Developer, and 1 Web Designer.
Roles
Full-Stack Development
Game Design
Tools
Construct 2
Time
Feb 2017 - Mar 2017
Why Construct?
This game engine is a very easy tool for developers to create games through visual programming. This software was built to allow people to make games quickly with little to no code.
This was very helpful for me because I was beginning my journey in creating games and learning basic game design.
Motivation & Goal
The idea was to change a big franchise game in a way that can impact the storyline and create an interesting plot for the main series. As a fan of the Legend of Zelda series, we thought it would be fun to create a Mario-like platformer in the Zelda universe. However, we changed the playable character to a non ideal main protagonist to put a twist on the story.
SUPER MARIO BROS
Legend of Zelda
Game Development
Before I started developing the game, I needed to first learn how to use this program by watching video tutorials online. I followed the Youtube playlist Construct 2: Mini Platformer Series by Jerementor and used the knowledge I learned into applying to our project. All of the art assets used were downloaded online from free pixel art sources.
Instead of worrying about writing many lines of code, I was able to focus on designing the levels and incorporating many elements that are featured in traditional platformer games. These elements included health system, enemy AI, checkpoint respawn flags, collectable objects, and finally a boss battle.
I was able to include these details into our game to showcase how much I really wanted to develop a fully functional and playable demo.
Environmental Hazard & Enemy AI
Level Design & Items
Checkpoint Respawn
Boss Battle
As you go down deeper into the cave, you collect rupees and earn a higher score. Unfortunately, the collectable items don't serve a functional purpose other than as a side mission for the demo. The level get's progressively harder as it gets more difficult traversing with more environmental hazards and enemies.
Link's Mastersword
The power up you earn before entering the boss room is an easter egg of the original character of the Legend of Zelda series. Cucco receives magical powers enough to defeat Ganon while wearing a cool hat.
Usability & Play Testing
We conducted a few rounds of play testing among peers to document feedback from people who don't play platformer games to experienced gamers. Here are notable comments from testing:
MingDong
"I really like this game. I have to say that I was so happy when I finally found the way to collect certain coin/diamond. This game is so hard, I was so excited after I finished it."
Mackenzie
"The game is very interactive! Very different than any of the other games in class. The game is fun and entertaining. I like the concept of the game."
David
"I liked the fact that it was a platformer. There were sprites, a score, physics that made sense, and a system where you could drop down through platforms. I love the gameplay!"
Tatum
"Reminds me of Mario, lots of interaction! I enjoyed that this game wasn't like all of the other text based games in this class. It was unique."
We also published our final version of the game onto the Scirra Arcade for people to enjoy online. However, a recent update to the website deleted many of the old games because they updated the game engine to the latest version. Unfortunately I was not able to retrieve the information and the played data because I was not notified of these changes before it happened. It was frustrating but I was able to find the old files of the project to post again on their new website.
Reflection & Key Takeaways
The original assignment was to use the program Twine in creating a choose your own adventure style text based game. It was optional to build other games using different methods so my team and I opted to build an interactive game using Construct. We were the only group that was ambitious enough to take it upon ourselves to learn how to use the Construct game engine in the class. As someone who grew up playing the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario games, I wanted to learn how build a game from scratch but at the time I had no programming experience. This was a very fulfilling project as it was my first experience in building my first game and being able to publish it on the internet.