Line-up

Introduction

Line-up is a 2D point-and-click police investigation game where for each round you are given three suspects in a line-up and you have to decide which one committed the crime using clues and evidence that are provided to you. The design attempts to be simple and similar to Papers, Please.

At the start of each round the three suspects will give opening statements about themselves and their lives. Following this, the player will move on to their work desk using one of the buttons presented where documents are displayed that give the details of the crime and the situation. The player can be given hints by the witnesses and this will include information which may reveal more about the documents given. Finally, the player can click judgement, and make a decision on who they think committed the crime. The screen fades, and this will be followed by GUILTY OR INNOCENT, with a reflection of whether the choice they made was correct or false.

Devlog:

01/05/2020…

This project will run from 01/05/2020 - 01/08/2020 (3mos) and will aim to improve my knowledge of image sizings, button triggering, multi-scene integration and basic pixel design. The game will include 1 static scene (main menu) and 2 - 3 multi-use scenes (scenes which are reused with different components and images including the Line-up scene, Judgement scene, and potentially the Work Table scene).

06/05/2020…

The design of the cover is a very important aspect as it gives prospective players the feel and vibe for the game and making this unique, creative, and interesting is very important for first impressions. The light turning on and highlighting the option to play is unique and interesting so I believe this successfully achieves my aim. Previously I integrated an options menu along with screen sizings of 1920 x 1080. These options aren’t required as the pixel resolution is low and the importance of changing these settings are minimal as this short game can be played on any system. I scaled the screen down from full width to 1024 x 768 as this will fit more nicely on the page and will also require less art design for the edges. The scene change system has been completed and the main menu as well as the first portion of the Line-up scene has been complete. I made a decision to change the artistic style from displayed pixel art to shadow art as I am having difficulty finding a pixel art sizing that I like and the shadow art more successfully falls in line with the art style of the game. The buttons have come from a Paper’s, Please template so I may want to change this later as this is the only element I have used that has been pre-made.

07/05/2020...

The plan for the game has been more clearly designed. In the Line-up section you will be able to click on the individual shadows and a description of them will appear alongside them. Also on the worktable, you will be able to click through a booklet that can display Investigator Comments, Murder Scene, Witness Testimonies, Clues, Forensics, and Suspect Profiles (Suspect Profiles might be changed later as this is similar to clicking on the suspects in Line-up mode). Added features include start-up animations and sound effects, movement animations, lamp movement code in line on the x axis with the mouse to make the scene feel more dynamic. 

The scene system will be constructed using a relatively elaborate button system and setting sections of the scene to active and inactive, this reduces the need for complex pieces of code as we don’t need a full save function either. This is a useful method to change quickly the different objects that are displayed on the screen. Font changed to something more gamey as the original looked relatively unrealistic to the game world. Canvas contains multiple examples of buttons that become inactive and active depending on what button is pressed. This reduces the complexity but can increase the size of each scene but considering that there isn’t a heavy number of objects on the page or in the scene at any one time this won’t be a problem in this circumstance.

08/05/2020…

I’ve found that the Judgement Scene can also be incorporated into the Crime Scene which means each level only has to be one scene long. I’ll aim to complete five levels and see how long my tester will take to complete it. Firstly, I am going to aim to re-design the look to be darker and more similar over multiple scenes. In terms of use of folders it has become immediately quite messy and I should note that in the future I should aim to reduce the amount of clutter and wasteful images I use.

20/05/2020…

All the artwork is now custom-made and has been improved. I was stuck for a few days on how to keep some levels unlocked and others locked until players manage to complete previous levels but thankfully the project is on the home-stretch of duplicating the scenes, changing the information and images and then cleaning up some elements of artwork. I have implemented a PlayerPrefs deletion tool script to quickly delete old saves so I can more easily test the game. The button calling system and script scene swapping alone have helped me understand how to easily call animations, scenes, and scripting elements.

23/05/2020...

Line-up has been tested by a Game Tester for gameplay suggestions and a number of changes have popped up including wording changes, spelling error corrections and a bit of UI development in the level selection scene is required to improve how it runs.

24/05/2020…

I’m not too pleased with some of the artwork as whilst I was making the variety of levels I used real world and vector images to display the objects. Really I should create my own objects as this will both improve my drawing skills and will standardise the images with the rest of the way the game looks.

01/06/2020…

I have now finished the remaining artwork so that everything in the game has been made by myself. Altogether, the information and coding has been completely finished. It contains six levels and can take approximately 15 minutes to complete. I was confused by how to ensure the specific resolution of the game was kept when transferring it into a browser but after some editing of the settings I managed to figure it out. I thought the project would take 3 months but thankfully due to the amount of time I had free I managed to complete it in just over a month. This project has helped me keep to a schedule even when I didn’t want to continue to work on it and also has improved my proficiency with drawing (although not by a huge margin).