'Make it Snappy', a frenzied mix of Where's Wally and Pokémon Snap.
Released May 2022 for free on Itch.io. Playable in browser and downloadable for Windows
---> play here <---
---> play here <---
I wanted to make a fast paced combination of Where’s Wally and Pokemon Snap, where the player is given clues, through messages on their phone, of who to photograph and quickly scramble around a rooftop searching for the potential subject. My main priority on this project was to design and develop a game that was fun, and to improve these skills in the process. My focus was not on the development of art assets, therefore I used third party assets where possible.
Gameplay
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Initial sketch and game concept
Camera mechanic and subject detection
I iteratively designed a camera mechanism which uses spherecasting to detect if a subject has been captured in the frame. This spherecast excludes certain layers in the environment, such as low fences, to ensure a subject is not missed. In addition, the spherecast’s distance is adjusted based on how zoomed in the camera is, so that a shot will only count if the subject is large enough in the frame.
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Dragon searching for a quick meal
Phone chat mechanic and clue database
Make it Snappy features 37 characters each with three sets of clues and a failure/success dialogue line. To easily manage the script I kept it in an spreadsheet and then imported this data in a JSON format to ingest it into Unity. More than anything, this was to avoid copy and pasting 135 lines of dialogue into inspector fields in Unity. These dialogue lines are correctly assigned to each character, and called upon when the randomised target is chosen. The game will randomly move through the entire list of 37 characters until they are exhausted and will then restart the list.
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Make it Snappy Dialogue spreadsheet
Post-mortem
I’m generally really happy with how the game turned out, I think it achieves my desired look and feel of playful, upbeat, irreverent and jokey. To improve the game further I would seek to change the scoring system to penalise the player for skipping targets and potentially improve the hint system and character design to be in combination randomised based on the look of the characters generated in any given scene.
Gameplay
- First person photography camera which allows the player to zoom with the mouse wheel, take pictures with the left click and commit/send pictures with the right click.
- The player can move freely around a rooftop, with the ability to sprint.
- Messages come through to the player in a hint system, where the hints get progressively easier if the player fails to find the subject they’re looking for.
- The game rewards less money to the player if they require more messages to find their subject.
- The game randomises the order and location of all subjects in the scene which means no one game is the same.
Initial sketch and game conceptCamera mechanic and subject detection
I iteratively designed a camera mechanism which uses spherecasting to detect if a subject has been captured in the frame. This spherecast excludes certain layers in the environment, such as low fences, to ensure a subject is not missed. In addition, the spherecast’s distance is adjusted based on how zoomed in the camera is, so that a shot will only count if the subject is large enough in the frame.
Dragon searching for a quick mealPhone chat mechanic and clue database
Make it Snappy features 37 characters each with three sets of clues and a failure/success dialogue line. To easily manage the script I kept it in an spreadsheet and then imported this data in a JSON format to ingest it into Unity. More than anything, this was to avoid copy and pasting 135 lines of dialogue into inspector fields in Unity. These dialogue lines are correctly assigned to each character, and called upon when the randomised target is chosen. The game will randomly move through the entire list of 37 characters until they are exhausted and will then restart the list.
Make it Snappy Dialogue spreadsheetPost-mortem
I’m generally really happy with how the game turned out, I think it achieves my desired look and feel of playful, upbeat, irreverent and jokey. To improve the game further I would seek to change the scoring system to penalise the player for skipping targets and potentially improve the hint system and character design to be in combination randomised based on the look of the characters generated in any given scene.