In this fast-paced time trial game, step into the shoes of Lance, a mouse residing within the walls of a sprawling house. Your objective is to swiftly locate scattered pieces of cheese within various rooms before the timer ticks down to zero. However, tread carefully, for a vigilant cat prowls the premises, ready to hunt you down and make a meal of you if caught.
The game emphasizes rapid movement and critical thinking, where every decision carries the potential for significant time penalties. Opting for a time trial format not only allows for the creation of numerous levels but also provides an opportunity to devise inventive ways for players to navigate through diverse buildings and houses.
This project is intended to show my ability to plan and construct levels within Unreal engine. Crumbs is my first project built in Unreal and is a good demonstration of how I can adapt to work within a new environment/ adapt to a new work flow. This project has show to me that I can construct a variety of levels and feel comfortable branching into new themes/genres of games, giving me a wide range of experience in making different types of games.
Game Play footage of the prototype game Crumbs, this video shows the full scale house and the character collecting the pieces of cheese placed around the house
Planning
The most important part of planning was ensuring that the scale of the house was as good as posable as map size is very important when the perspective is played through the eyes of a mouse.
As the game is set in a house I had to make sure that the proportions of rooms and furniture was right selling the fact that the game is played and set in the real world
Level Design
The level design and feel was the focus of the project. As I want to improve and adapt my level and world building. the concept for the level was a large house with accessible rooms to minovery in. as the game is a prototype I made a detailed block out in engine for the environment with looks very effective.
A simple way I have tried lighting up the other rooms is by having the light of the TV and computer screens on. Although isn’t very true to life as you wouldn’t leave a tv or computer screen on I decided this as it’s the best way to introduce fake lighting without putting bright lights around the rooms
Functionality/Game play
The house has 20 pieces of cheese scattered within the house’s 10 rooms. You are given a 5-minute timer that will count down as you are playing, if the 20 pieces are not collected within the time you will lose. If you collect all 20 pieces and get back to your mouse hole you win and will be given the time it took to complete the run.
The gameplay is very straightforward and ensures that the player is focused on completing the task before the timer runs out, the timer is there to remind the player they only have limited time, so they haven’t got time to be messing around.
The Cat patrolling the house is an important part of the game as this is the main obstacle standing in your way from getting a good or bad time. Depending on where the cat is you may have to change your path every try making it difficult to stick to one route to complete the level. without the cat, the game would be a lot less challenging as the only threat of losing is the timer.