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Bring on the Bling

Description

You are a contestant in a virtual game show where you have to fight to earn money, but there's a twist! Your money is your health... Survive all 15 waves to win!

Features

- Fight waves of enemies in arenas.
- Buy gun upgrades using money/health.
- Buy super weapons with unique abilities with gold bars.
- The level changes rooms every few waves.

Coming soon on Steam!

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Bring on the Bling is a year-long senior project. Contrary to other team projects I've been on, I've worked with new people for the most part, and in a much smaller team. By senior year, I wanted to created a new project rather than to work on an existing one, mostly to diversify my skills as a designer but also because I like keeping my skills fresh in creative new and different things.

The Team:

Designers
Oscar Monzon - Level/UI Designer
Peiling Lee - System/Level Designer

Progammers
Andrew Cartera - AI/Audio Designer
Ember Haviland - Gameplay/Technical Designer

My Role

Level Design:

  • I designed the level, and its evolved form, for the first 10 waves.

  • Drew level layouts.

  • Build levels as a whiteboxes in Maya, then imported it in Unreal.

  • Designed a flow chart describing the flow of encounters, and the pace of the game.

  • Used the Level Sequencer in Unreal to animate the evolving level.


UI Design:

  • Designed most of the menus and their transition using Figma.

  • Designed and implemented the main menu, pause, options, credits.

  • Designed and implemented the tutorial overlays.

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Other Design Work:

  • Conducted playtesting sessions.

  • Made appropriate changes based on playtesting feedback

Bring on the Bling Level 1.png
Bring on the Bling Level 2.png
Bring on the Bling Level Engine.png
Bring on the Bling Level Evolve.gif
Bring on the Bling Options Wireframe.png
Bring on the Bling Before.png
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Bring on the Bling After.png
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Roadblocks & Challenges

Personally, this project proved a challenge for my technical skills. I was not very proficient in blueprints, making UI in Unreal, and using tools I've never used before such as Animation/Level Sequencing.

While I had experience in making UI using Unity, I originally felt confident in tackling many of the menus (Andrew took care of the HUD), but making UI in Unreal felt very unfamiliar, especially since I had not a lot of experience with Unreal blueprints, and implementing the menus took time, help from my teammates, and a lot for trial and error.

In terms of level design, I also used a tool I've never used before and it proved a challenge in learning how to work with it, actually making it work, and making it work with other elements of the level. As my teammates were not familiar with the tool either, understanding it and getting help was difficult, but through a lot of practice and delving deep in the tool, I managed to use the animation/level sequencer tool in a way that fulfilled the vision I had for the game.

Play the game now!

What I learned and Achieved

As a team, we had a goal of making a fun game for our senior project, while we each encountered difficulties along the way, I believe we achieved this collective goal, as a lot of playtesting reported positive reactions to the game, as well as people wanting to complete the whole game and coming back to play it.

Personally with this project, while I also wanted to make a fun game, I also wanted to showcase unique level design, and deepening my knowledge of Unreal Engine, which I think I also achieved.

The idea of a level changing and evolving as the player progresses is not necessarily something new (I was inspired by Dishonored 2 with that idea), but it is a rare enough concept that attempting it felt fruitful, but most importantly, it serves the gameplay, and makes the game more fun to play. As this is a game based on repetition (waves of enemies coming after you, buy upgrades, repeat), keeping the experience fresh, keeps the players engaged throughout the experience.

Making UI was not originally my goal for this project, but I found myself volunteering to take on some UI tasks as I had prior experience with Unity. This proved a challenge as making UI in Unreal felt very different from Unity an required time, help, and a lot of troubleshooting. Even though it was not my original goal, learning UI in Unreal was a valuable experience, and ultimately serve another goal of mine, deepening my knowledge of Unreal Engine.

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