Puff Daddy Goes to the Bathroom

Frustrating physics.

Role

Game Designer &

Project Manager

Timeframe

4 weeks (Spring 2021)

Engine

Unreal Engine 4

Team

Design & Blueprint:

Eira Saastamoinen

Martin Hallgren

Sigge Lindberg

3D:

Akharadet Ekchanok

Fredrik Jansson

Wirachaya Tachakomol

Game Description

Puff Daddy Goes to the Bathroom is a frustrating physics-based game where you help the puffer fish Puff Daddy escape a restaurant. The gameplay is centered around movement and when you are controlling Puff Daddy you have three options to get around: flopping, jumping and rolling. Flopping lets you move forward and is the basic way to get around. Jumping is really useful and helps Puff Daddy avoid gaps and hazards and also get up to higher places. Rolling lets you move around a lot faster and is also good for knocking over obstacles. The movement is purposefully made to feel tricky to challenge the player.

The restaurant is filled with many obstacles and hazards. The stove spouts out bursts of fire and a hungry cat is roaming around the floor ready to eat you up. The game is made to be challenging but addicting, making you both frustrated when you lose as well as motivated to try again. A crafty player might discover alternate routes and tricks to skip difficult parts of the game which rewards exploration and experimentation. The goal of the game is to find your way to the bathroom and to flush yourself down to freedom!

Pillars

Fish out of Water

Unfamiliar, and uncomfortable, surroundings for a fish.

Movement

Waddle, roll and jump your way through the restaurant.

Survival

Do not fall to the ground.

Game Design

Rolling for faster movement and knocking objects out your way. Since the character is a blow fish we used the different movement types making the game more interesting and that the player could choose how they play it.

First movement

Waddle and jump your way through the level. Get to different heights and surface to proceed. With the non conventional movement system making the difficulty level higher going into the aesthetic of the game being frustrating but motivating to get further in the game for each time you play it.

Using light switches to make lamps fall down so the player can swing from table to table. Difficulty level on timing when to jump and make the lamp swing in a certain way.

Alpha movement

We had an idea for water pickup in the beginning of the project. Water that Puff Daddy would pick up so he did not dry out that added a more survival element to the gameplay. But we noticed after playtests that it took away from the game feel.

Cameras

In the level there are multiple cameras that activated when the player reach a trigger box. Having them put in a specific way so the player could see where they shall go. Placing them out after gameplay and movement in thought while telling a story for the character, the escape to the bathroom.

Press to open

Blueprint for camera trigger

Level Design

From the beginning we had the movement and we now needed to adapt the level after the non conventional movement for making it interesting but also so the player could move from point A to B.

From the beginning we had idea with using a trolley where the player used force to move it across the restaurant. This didn't make a lot of sense and made the gameplay not as interesting. Also having the kitchen separate from the rest of the restaurant made the player guidance disappear so we decided to change our idea completely.

First Sketch

Final Sketch

With the second and final idea we came up with the idea to have the kitchen and restaurant connected so we could improve the player guidance. Looking at references from sushi restaurants and having a sushi counter. With the idea of light switches that made the lamps fall down so the player could move from table to table made the level more adapted after the movement system and game feel.

Final and finished level in game was similar to our sketch. Where we needed to think how long the player could jump and roll with playtesting and adapting after the gameplay.

Final Level

Difficulty Level

Having a frustrating and non conventional game and movement was something that came during the production and through playtesting. We had suggestions to make save points but for us it destroyed the entire game since the level is pretty short, with the difficulty level we had a much more repayable game.

Project Manager

Daily Standup
Group health and organizing AW
Priority lists
Presenting for jury each week
Using Miro and Trello