Overview
SubOptimal is a point and click adventure game where you play as a boat mechanic that must save a sinking ship. But there’s an issue; everyone onboard has been transformed into a magical creature! Will this marsupial be able to save his friends and stop this boat from sinking?
Project Details
Genre: Point and Click
Game Engine: Unity
Supported Platform: PC
Role: Game Designer
Team size: 9 people
Production time: 4 weeks
Release date: Feburary 2021
What I did for the project
Game Design
UX Design
Level Design
Narrative Design
Core Design Pillars
Engaging Visuals
Fun Puzzles
Visual Clarity
Early sketch on how the text bubbles would work
GIF of the textbox and hover over object.
UI and guiding the player
We wanted to make it easy for the player to understand what is important to progressing the game and what needs to be done to complete the game. We did this by allowing the player to inspect and interact with their surroundings in fun ways.
In the process to create the thought / speech bubbles I wanted them to appear above the player character. This is because I wanted it to be easy to see which character is talking and see if it’s a thought bubble or speech bubble.
When the main character is thinking, there is a cloudy like text bubble while when they’re talking it’s a sharp text bubble.
I also wanted the objects that the player can interact with have an outline to help players understand what can be interacted with to help them progress the game.
The Blockout Level
I created the blockout for the last level, the oxygen room. What I wanted with this level was to have the player progress through it every level at a time, so I created several platforms that the player had to go through inorder to complete this level’s puzzle and save their crew.
How we designed the progression system was using overflowing water in level so the player could not progress without removing the excess water from the other parts of the level.
