PC (Gamepad Priority)
Single-Player
6 - 13 Oct '23
Tools Used
Game overview
This is a small etude created as an assignment for one of the first courses during my education at Futuregames. The task brief was to create a first-person prototype that would convey a chosen theme on a gameplay level.
In the prototype, you get to play as Luxo Jr., the famous Pixar Lamp. It was the main character of the studio’s first short movie, and since then, has been a mascot of the company.
My main intent was to make a player embrace the Lamp's quirks and intuitively behave like Luxo.
Who is luxo?
Or establishing concrete design goals
To understand in which direction I had to think further, I conducted the most pleasant research ever
Binge-Watched retro Pixar short movies
Watched the Luxo Jr. short movie 7 times on .25 speed
Read the first chapters of the Pixar art book
God bless Stockholm for the cinema library
I saw how much detailed work was put into making the characters feel natural. And I got inspired by it. I defined the following main design principles
Player's learning curve should reflect Luxo's character
Introduction to controls should be "in-action",
without tutorials
Player should want the same things as Luxo
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Create limitations and satisfaction when avoiding them
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Utilize people's awareness of the character
The game should still be a game​
Pose challenges and ways to overcome them
I also clarified the behavioral pattern expected from new players
Recognize
Play Around
Utilize
After having the main goals established, I felt free to design the controls of the Lamp. However, one particular problem arose
the lamp is pretty complex
Or prototyping of procedural anatomy
Aside from just moving and looking around, the lamp also folds and unfolds because
It needs to prepare to Jump
It wants to interact with an object
It just feels like doing it
(the lamp’s emotions are emphasized by its kinematics)
And the Lamp’s anatomy implies multiple joints which can either fold or rotate (pan).
What could I do about all of it?
In order to not get lost in the infinite amount of options, I established the following principles of Luxo’s controls
Convey the playfulness of the lamp folding
Should I assign (un)folding to separate buttons? But Luxo does not treat it as a separate action!
Limit the amount of buttons
But how do I show the smooth complexity of the character?
Tie the folding to camera input
The size of the lamp implies that players will be looking up and down a lot. That's when the lamp will be folding!
When idle, the Lamp has noticeable states. Player can switch between them based on the angle of the camera. Some of them may even imply a different X-axis input response.
Scene view of Luxo folding
Folding from Luxo's perspective
Technical implementation
Satisfaction Through Movement
Or prototyping state-driven movement
Since Movement is the only action Luxo can perform, I had to develop a whole movement ruleset to make the system relatively deep and convey the whole emotional palette of Lamp’s behavior.
I chose to limit most of player’s default movement to jumping because this decision​
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conveyed Luxo’s sympathetic character – the lamp itself looks as if it is limping, which adds a cute quirk
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Encouraged players to look forward to another movement mode which is Ball Riding
Jumping on the ball and riding it is as satisfying as it is in the short movie because of the contrast between movement mode potentials.
Ball riding was supposed to feel like a boost, so destroying the ball after a certain amount of time felt like a good idea (and was also a good reference to the short movie!)
Luxo's moveset
Luxo on a ball
Technical implementation
Or prototyping interactive objects
Jump is the interaction
And you can also push balls (why not?)
it's me, luxo!
With all the pillars established above, the principles of in-game interaction were naturally shaped
Pushing balls was not needed for the core experience, but the mechanic added liveliness to the interactable environment and added something playful that one could do without a particular reason (just as Luxo would).
Scene view of ball-pushing
How Luxo jumps on a ball
With the first-person perspective, I needed to make sure the following rules were met
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Players should recognize that they are in a different mode.
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Players do not have to care about precision too much, their intent is what matters
To fulfill these wishes, I added an assist feature which made the Lamp auto-attach to a chosen ball.
Technical implementation
Jumping on a letter
I suspected everybody would want to jump on the letters (everybody jumped on the letters!) and added their specific response.