WayBackHome
WayBackHome is a 3D Pacman-like game I made during my first year in College.
OFFICE / NIGHTMARE / SURVIVAL
The intention of making this game is to react to the current working culture in my home country: people are forced to work from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Workers are treated as livestocks: they work, they burn and they die.
Story
Poor Jason has been working over 10 hours with no rest. He finally finished his work and prepare to go home. Just before he reach the gate, the boss shows up.
"Jason, why don't you work for another 10 hour?"
"No, I'm so tired, let me go home, please."
"Then you no longer useful to the fatherland, go to hell then"
And The Hunt Begins
Level Design
Similar to the original PACMAN, the map is consist of three sections: the top and the bottom sections were symmetrial to each other with multiple intersections. While the middle section is relatively simple designed but with two portal located at west and east side of the section, connected to each other.
However, player do not have access to all the three sections at the begining of the game. They need to collect a certain amount of pellets in order to unlock the doors that lead to the next section.
The difficulty will increase when new level unlocked and new enemy released. There are three enemy in total, one locate in each level. When the panels between each level unlocked, monsters are able to partol across the entire map and will not be trapped inside the level where it originally from.
The gate to the finish point will be unlocked when all the pellets were collected.
UI Design
Most UI elements were marked in Purple as shown in the screenshot below. I put them in the same color theme so the players are able to recognize them easiser and faster.
The pellets that player need to collect were also in glowing purple so they share the similar color as the score do. A connection will be made between the collectable and the score.
Life count and the mini map are located at the top right corner of the screen while the current score and the target score are placed at the bottom left corner.
When there is infomation updated, the new message will be delivered to the player at the lower bottom of the game window, marked in bright blue (as shown in the second screenshot below).
Game Balancing
For the current game, monsters will switch between two modes: the Chasing Mode and the Scatter Mode.
Under Chasing Mode, monster will find the shortest path to the player and hunt the player down. Under Scatter Mode, everytime when monster reach an intersection, it will turn to a random direction. When the duration of one mode ends, monster will switch to the other mode.
The duration for each mode has been set differently for each monster, the purpose is to avoid intense chasing and give player time to rest and escape.
In terms of the score, there are 2400 pellets in total.
900 pellets are required to unlock Level 02.
1500 pellets are required to unlock Level 03.
2400 pellets are required to unlock the final escape gate.
So there are 900 pelllets in the top and botton section and 600 in the middle section of the game
Future Implement
There are many other systems that be implemented which offer player more verbs in gameplay. For example, the power pellets allows the monster enter the frighten mode and player is able to hunt down the monster under this mode.
Also, other special pellets with new mechanics can be made as well. Like X-ray pellets that allows player to see through walls or Trap pellets that allows player to place a trap in the ground, which will stop any monster who step on it for a while.
