I want my room

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Overview

I WANT MY ROOM!! is a small turn based RPG and classic style with pixel art, using a top view for the main stage and changes to a side view during combat, made in Unity 5. The game was created for the 1RoomRPG Game Jam of 2017 and combines several elements of the genre such as classic turn based combats, inventory management, a good amount of puzzles, sense of humor and an important narrative about some kids who experience a weird paranormal event and they are trapped into a room in a parallel reality.

The player takes the role of Angie, a smart, extroverted girl without mincing words who is trapped inside her own room when it is transported to a parallel reality and at the same time as it’s being altered in a way too in a way that elements that usually are harmless suddenly come alive and become hostile. While she uses her ingenuity to solve puzzles to come home, Charlie, another boy who was trapped inside his own room and is transported to Angie’s while he was trying to escape will join her.

Design objectives

• To create a funny RPG that will meet the Game Jam’s restrictions:
  • All the game must be inside a single room.
  • It must contain inventory management.
  • At least 10 minutes of gameplay.
  • All the game content and assets have to be created to  the game or be under the Creative Commons license (public or by reference).
  • Finished and published before the jam finishes (1 month).
• To demonstrate skills at combat based combat design, creating puzzles related with the environment, designing menus and inventory, level pacing experience management, also leveling up characters.
• Creating an original narrative, entertaining and with lots of sense of humor that encourages the player to go to the end, using sprites and original elements created for this game (except musing and sound).
• To create a level in pixel art in top view that switches to a lateral view during combat.

Link of the game’s page:

https://invertedcastleworks.itch.io/iwantmyroom

The game can be downloaded both for Windoes (7-10) and Mac OSX. The best way to keep it updated is by using itch.io’s application, but it can be also downloaded without it. In this last case all that is needed is to download, unzip and execute the game (in case of Windows, it’s important to keep the folder structure so the .exe and the folder that comes with it must be in the same place).

Design and Analysis document

To see the document of design and analysis with detail please click at the image or the link from below.

I WANT MY ROOM!! – Design Document

Gameplay

Detailed info

I WANT MY ROOM!! started being a game for a Game Jam with which to improve both at design and development skills, having to investigate, learn to acquire experience in creating a classic style RPG with pixel art style, adding also a very tight time. However it went further and the two members of the team decided that after the jam’s end, the game could be even better, adding missing details  and some visual improvements. From start to finish, it lasts around 15-20 minutes. All the game content but the music and sound was created expressly for the game, so while I was focused at game design and mechanics, the level design tasks where shared between me and the artist.

The rest of this page is intended to show briefly the tasks I did and some images from the design. For a more detailed information about the game and metodology I used, please don’t hesitate to take a look at the design and analysis document.

Level map

Game & Level Design

• Narrative elements (characters, enemies, story, dialogs, sequences…):
• Character progression (experience management and levelling).
• Combat design (turn based combat mechanics, attributes, commands, experience, loot…):
• Design of the UI and menu structure:
  • Main Menu.
  • In-Game Menus:
    • Information Menu.
    • Inventory.
    • Management of the Equipment.
• Puzzle’s Design:
  • Puzzle of the clock.
  • Pieces of number.
  • Puzzle at the library.
  • Puzzle of the hidden panel.
• Items (consumables, equipment, clues…):
• Global design of the content of the room.
• Level Pacing.
• Events (Charlie’s apparition, feedback of the puzzles…):
• Keyboard map and buttons distribution for game Input.
• Introduction of some easter eggs.

Scripting

• Input Manager:
  • Keyboard and Gamepad mapping.
  • Manager of input mappings accordiong to the Operating System and platform.
• Dialogs Manager:
  • Dialog secuences manager with different frame positions if a known character is speaking or it is unknown or narrator.
  • Dialog from a known character includes it’s portrait image.
• Sequencer Manager:
  • In-game Sequences manager editor tool that works from Unity’s editor. Sequences involve dialog, animations and game events.
  • Classes with elements and parameters to manage the sequences.
• Events.
• Interaction with Menus:
  • Navigation through all the menus.
  • Functionalities of the menus (Main Menu, Inventory Manager and Equipment Management).
• Character classes related to combat:
  • Attributes and skills.
  • Control of experience and levelling.
• Combat start trigger, initialitation and return back to exploration mode.
• State Machines for combat:
  • State Machines for characters.
  • Battle Controller (Initialization, turns management, execution of actioons, end of combat…).
• Combat skills:
  • Classes for different attack types  (physic, magic or item).
  • Attack types and stats for each one.
  • Definition of the execution of the attack with or without animation.
• GUI (UI and combat menus, notifications, interactive text, dialog…):
• Different types of items (Usable, consumable, equipment…)
• Player Controller (walking, inspect element, interaction with the chest…):
• Triggers for the different interactive elements and their feedback.
• Puzzles and their related events.
  • Puzzle of the clock.
    • Clue obtained after solving.
    • Fail dialog.
    • Secret dialog with Charlie.
  • Library.
    • Library moving.
  • Puzzle of the hidden panel.
    • Start a random combat in case of error.
    • Sequence of the boss’s apparition before the final battle.
  • Apparition of the Mid-boss.
• Adding music and sound effects.
• Testing and bug fixes.
• Multilanguage support.

Combat sample

Combat flux:

1. Every chatacte waits for its turn.
2. Once the waiting is over:
   1. In case of an enemy, the AI selects both and attack and a target.
   2. In case of being one of the memebers of the player group, the combat menu shows up to select a command. If the player has consumable items this option will be shown too. If the character doesn’s have enough MP (Magic Points) for a magic attack it couldn’t be done. Finally allows the player to select a target.
3. If while the player is introducing the action to perform and another player character is ready, this one will wait until the previous command introduction is finished.
4. The action, whether if it’s from an enemy or from one of the player’s characters is introduced into a queue of actions, so they will be executed and removed one by one, waiting to finish the current action (if any) before starting the next one.
5. The process repeats until all enemies or all the player’s characters are defeated.
   1. Enemies win-> Game Over.
   2. If the player’s characters win -> They get experience and also there’s a possibility to loot an object.

Puzzle of the clock

Solution: Update the numbers according to the system time. It can also be checked from the main menu.

Searching of pieces of number

Solution: Consists at finding three pieces of paper that are hidden all over the room and viewing them from the inventory to try to realize what number is written in them. The location of the three pieces of paper can be checked in the image below.

Puzzle of the library

Solution:

1. Empty the chest.
2. Push the chest to the library and climb on top.
3. Read the titles of the unsorted books.
4. Read the book from the desktop and try to match colors with titles of the books to guess the order.
5. Go back to the library and set the position of every book according to their order:
   

   Orden	Color	Título del libro
   1	Green	The turtle’s race.
   2	Brown	The potato that didn’t want to be eaten.
   3	Black	And your gift, charcoal.
   4	Gray	The tired cloud.
   5	Red	Bright Poppies.
   6	Yellow	Narcissus.

Puzzle of the hidden panel

Solution:

1. Resolve the puzzle of the clock and find all the pieces of number to be able to fight with the mid-boss.
2. Defeat the mid-boss to get the last number.
3. Check all the clues obtained and introduce the numbers into the panel at the correct order as it’s stated at the puzzle’s sentence (1- Pieces of number, 2- Number from the clock, 3- by rejection, the last one).
4. The sequence changes at the begining of every new game but the order is always the same. If an incorrect sequence is introduced the group is attacked.