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-Overview-

Development Time: Aug 2022 - November 2022

Development Tools: Unity

Genre: VR, Action, Puzzle

Team Size: 7

-Game Intent-

Claws & Effect is a single-player virtual reality (VR) action-puzzle game in which players assume the role of a “hit-cat” hired to eliminate (or “whack”) as many rat targets as possible by creatively using the environment. Gameplay is meant to dynamically vary at the player’s choice between slow and methodical planning of environmental traps and exciting moments of executing on plans, as well as utilizing items in the environment to complete task-based objectives.

-Design Process-

The development of Claws & Effect initially began with a decision, one that would ultimately shape the entire course of the game's development, as well as give the project its unique identity that no other game quite encapsulates. That decision was our shift into VR development.

In the beginning of pre-production, Claws & Effect (then affectionately titled Cat Bastard) was intended to be a third-person action puzzler game where you would run, climb and jump as a cat and use your environment to assassinate targets, a concept heavily inspired by the Hitman series. However, we felt as though the concept lacked an aspect to make it stand out from past games, and truly bring it into the unique territory we wanted the game to have.

While in a team meeting, the unanimous idea of developing for Virtual Reality was brought into our design discussion, and we began to visualize the ways in which VR would better our game overall. We found that, not only did the mechanics of wall climbing and jumping work better in this perspective, but that the gameplay would be far more fun if it was truly interactable, rather than utilizing the buttons of a controller. As such, after technical research into how to set up VR for Unity, we shifted our direction into the space of Virtual Reality and never looked back.

My primary role for the game's development lay in concepting and implementing its level design, and with the project shifting into VR, development posed an interesting and unique challenge to me of how to design levels for VR. The first step of this challenge, much like any level, involved Context; Where did the level take place? When did it take place? Why was the player here? 

With little narrative or story to work from at this point, I used our pitched artstyle as a basis: 1920s Art Deco. With my team, I went through several areas that one would generally associate with that time period: Wealthy Manors, Extravagant Cities, and Speakeasies. At around the same time, we knew that we wanted the gameplay to be similar to the Hitman series, wherein players would use the environment and the objects found within it to assassinate targets. We wanted to associate this hitman-like style gameplay with a playspace that was busy, but also seedy; somewhere one would associate with a "criminal underworld". It was this relationship that led us to ultimately choose the Speakeasy. 

The second challenge that I faces with the Speakeasy level was Scale. Inherently, because VR is first-person, the playspace has to make believable sense in terms of scale dependent on the context of the player-character. Because our player-character was a cat, the Speakeasy would not only have to be scaled so that players would believe they were actually playing as a cat, but it had to be designed in a way that such a scale was easily traversible for a smaller creature. Seeing as there was an inherent disconnect between realistic scale and scale for the game, I followed this mantra when sketching the level: Believable for Human Usage, Realistic for Cat’s Perspective.

A third and final challenge I faced throughout the entire development was Traversability. In VR, designers inherently take on risks when creating playspaces, as you have to consider carefully how best to allow players to move, and how the playspace supports that movement. VR also inherently accentuates the effects of Motion Sickness, which depending on the player, can lead to the game being physically unplayable.

We wanted to introduce ways of movement that dynamically supported players' freedom of movement, while also being fun and mitigating motion sickness. There were many different combinations based on other VR titles that we experiemented with, and we ultimately ended up with classic joystick movement, teleport-jumping and "rung-by-rung" wall climbing. 

With our movement systems defined, I had to build the Speakeasy level in a way that offered points at which to use these systems in creative ways. Because the only clear objective was to assassinate a certain amount of targets, players were free to traverse the level however they liked, meaning that there was no one "way" for players to progress in. As such, I offered different areas of the level where specific movement systems would allow for vertical traversal, such as using the teleport jumping to get on top of tables. In other places I reinforced particular movement systems by making only one way to traverse something, such as having to use wall climbing to scale the stage, allowing entrance to the dress room. 

What was created from this design was a sandbox-style level that allowed players to tackle objectives in any matter they chose. In each area as well, I carefully chose what environmental objects would be placed there, and through them would offer multiple non-direct solutions to assassinating targets.

-Documentation-