Cryold guy

Cryold guy developed by Gricel Gonzalez in 2 weeks.

Summary

Gameplay

A janitor named Joaquin is called to clean up a hideous mess in a strange laboratory. Next thing he knows is he is waking up from cryogenesys in a dark laboratory with signs that instruct him to walk and take a look around. There is an uneasy feeling in the air that something is watching him and is exploring bodylessly around the labs.
Joaquin takes the only path available in order to find an elevator that takes him to a room filled with various test chambers which he must finnish.

Cryold guy is a first person-puzzle game, the player must work through puzzles that give the player specific mechanics to work through a test chamber. Those mechanics can include: A gun that can carry heavy objects, a flashlight, running shoes, etc.
The player can die and reset to a checkpoint, and every death has a unique animation, such as being boilded/melted alive, struck by a laser beam, eaten, etc.

My work

This is the first game I ever did in which I did not do the assets. I only had 2 weeks to make the full game, so I had to hurry everything up. Everything but the programming part of course, I have the personal preference of programming every code I can so I never ever lose practice.
I designed the entirity of the flow of the game. From a GDD to two full diagrams of the stage parts (One for the tutorial and one for the hub area plus five test chambers), and the creation of distinct interiors that served specific purposes.
For the losing penalties for the player I did not want to make a simple "You died" screen, that is the laziest and most garbage way to penalize, so I placed special animations for all the types of death like in Crash Bandicoot, but more sadistic. I made six in total, one for each danger element in the game, so Joaquin's deaths have variety, they are short so they hardly get annoying. The best part is that the game has checkpoints in every section, so the player does not lose too much progress and can experiment.
The game counts with plenty of cinematics, in which most are silent so the actions speak for the characters. The only non silent cinematic is at the end in which Joaquin confronts the machine who has been experimenting with him.

Level design

The level planning in cryold guy was simpler than I expected, I know it had to be a large hub area with at least 5 different test chambers to go through, but the design document turned out great in just one full day of work. My phylosophy was to make all rooms serve a purpose and give an speciphic challenge for the player.
The real challenge for me was designing the interiors, I took full advantage of the simplest unicolor walls for the asset pack of Scifi indoors because they were easy on the eyes, that was because most walls in the asset pack were too filled with details and that ironically made everything look ugly.
For the roofs I did not want to make a roof the size the asset pack gives because they felt too narrow for what I wanted to make:
-parkour
-high platforms
-watching towers in interiors
I stretched most walls to be higher. The higher walls did not look bad in the final product because I also used the fog system Unity includes so the game also feels dark. The fog also helped in hiding the end of the tall walls so they looked like they go further than the eye can see.
But that idea with the fog system created one huge complain that I got from the two people that tested the level, Rafael Maubrigades and Jacob Parra, "the game is too dark", that is where I realized the floors with emitting lights (3D modeled lights) were not enough. I solved that issue by adding a dim light that follows the player and adding a few sun-like lights around the game (A different one for every test chamber to change the tone in every chamber).

My experience

By the time I finished 'Cryold guy' I was incredibly tired, two very complicated weeks with a ton of work done, I was not in my best shape so when the project needed a name I quickly came up with "Cryold guy" which is a mix of words "Cry old guy", "Cryo"(as in cryogenesys). Not the best name I could had came up with but it somehow has some personality.
The entire game development was like taking a huge shortcut. Every system was made to be simple, with simple short codes that only do one separate thing each, most systems were made to have one quick function and be done so I could take most of the time on finishing the scenarios and test chambers.
That experience of making this game quickly made me realize how important is to learn nieche developer techniques to make a game work, such as the one called "Developer cubes". I had to create my own to function as timers, they are the reason there are timed pistons and timed lasers.
I mostly remember being mind-blown right after placing an interactive button (for the player) far far away hidden in the scenario void. The "button for the player" is not meant to be pressed by the player, it controlled parts of a cinematic.
One funny shortcut I took was the monster that chases the player is just a 3D object following and looking at the player at all times, he walks on a path, or at least he looks like he does, in reality he is walking to a place where the player was. Instead of animating it walking I just made it float as a ghost.

Link to the project

Image gallery