magic dice forest
ROLE | GAME DESIGNER & UNITY ENGINEER DURATION | 48 Hours TOOLS USED | UNITY, C#
Magic Dice Forest is a 2d adventure RPG game. Players are dice warriors that have an adventure in the forest in search of magic dice, they can use their six-sided dice powers to fight with the magic creatures inhabiting the forest, and search for the treasure boxes to strengthen their dice powers. Eventually, the player needs to find the evil dragon that possesses the magic dice and fight with it.
This project was created for the Fall 2022 Art Center Game Jam. The game jam's theme and our primary design constraint were "Roll of the Dice".
This game is made with a team of five people.
How do we interpret the theme
We apply the theme ”roll of the dice” on both player’s movement and combat system.
movement
Avatar is a dice warrior, so we intend not to use the normal WASD movement. We want to reproduce the real experience of throwing the dice on the map and letting them roll and collide with the objects. based on this concept, we design that the player needs to pull the avatar and then adjust the angle and strength of the throwing dice, and then when the player releases the mouse button the avatar will be launched and then travel on the map.
combat
The six grids on the left side of the screen show the different powers that the six sides of the dice can give to the avatar. When players enter battle, they can randomly roll one of the six sides on their turn and receive the corresponding shield value and attack power on that turn.
When players defeat an enemy and find a treasure box, they can assign power to up to six different dice sides to strengthen their dice power.
Combat
Power Up
level design and path leading
map design
We want to provide players with free exploration options, so we design three exploration routes (left, middle, and right). All three paths allow players to experience different battles and receive different rewards, while all three paths cross with each other and lead to the same endpoint. Additionally, we want players can always be curious about the unexplored areas, so we put enemies or treasure chests in locations where every time players walk just the right amount of distance. Thus players can always maintain the desire to explore.
path leading
In order to give players a hint to find the final boss, while not obviously interfering with the player's exploration options, we design to show the distance between the player and the boss on the screen. Players can determine whether they are further away from the boss or closer to it by the change of this distance number.
We also put some signs about treasure boxes and mini-boss in different places to give players something to look forward to in what they are about to explore while ensuring that even if players choose different exploration paths they'll be guided by enough signs and hints.
map prototype
final map
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
My contribution to Magic Dice Forest is designing the game concept about how to apply the game jam theme to the player movement and combat system. I also develop all the game mechanics in Unity and refine the map design and pathfinding.