OverNight

OverNight is a group project. In a group of four, we designed a story-driven puzzle game. It is a completed game with different types of levels, art assets, sound effects and music and a completed story. My role was the programmer and designer for some of the game mechanics and levels. I and another designer designed the main mechanics that switch between two characters with different abilities to solve the puzzle. The levels in the video are some of the levels designed by me and more in the game.

LEVEL DESIGN

Puzzle 1

The background of this level is the room next to the dining room therefore there is a toilet. The monster on the right and the blood on the floor shows the player that something went wrong in this house. As the first level, the purpose of it is to teach the player about the characters abilities. It uses switching characters, cat can access small tunnel and the man can push boxes and open door.

Horror level

As a mystery game, I decided to design a horror level in it. When controlling the man, this level is very dark and the player only has a short range of vision. Although the player can use the night vision ability of the cat to see map and know where the enemies are, this puzzle requires separating the character.

The background of this level is a alter that can turn living organism into zombie. So there is a summoning circle, pods that store bodies and zombie walking around. This is the night vision ability of the cat which allows player to see in the dark.

Hidden marking

The Background of this level is the laboratory that research the zombie. There are pods and electric wires on the ground.

The puzzle uses the night vision which not only able to see in the dark but also see hidden buttons and markings (in red). You can see the buttons on the left and the markings on the right does not appear in the normal vision. Player needs to use the man to press both button at the same time to disable the traps in the tunnel to let the cat goes through it.

PAPER PROTOTYPE

Me and my group made a paper prototype for the first level. It is labelled and colour coded to make it clear. It uses the grid to show the size of the objects in the game to scale. The cat is smaller than the man and able to crawl into the small tunnel therefor the cat is 1x1 in size. While the man and the enemy cannot crawl into the tunnel so they are 2x2 in size.