So Long GDC 2025!
About:
In Thing and Fist players can choose to play as Thing, a speedy mage that fires bolts of lightning to fry his foes, or as Fist, a golem that sends enemies flying with his massive stone arms. Each player will take on one of these two roles and use their unique abilities in tandem with their partner to battle their way through two distinct levels populated with nefarious enemies, quirky NPCs, and tricky traps that players can use to get an upper hand.
Role: Gameplay/Level Designer
Team: Team Whimsy
Engine: Unity
Platform: PC
Dev Time: 6 Months
Timeframe: Jan - Jun, 2024
As an onboarded designer for Thing and Fist, I wanted to bring more interactive elements to the table by improving the game sandbox or characters and entities. I also created a level that showcases these elements in ways that are impactful for the player's experience.
While playing the game's initial prototype before joining the team, I noted that the game combat was very well refined for both of the player characters, but was missing an amount of depth that showcased each character's differences and how they interact with the game world. To remedy this I had conceived a document full of interactable entities that designers could utilize to enhance a segment of gameplay in more diverse and emergent ways.
As for the level, I knew that the map I created would be the final map of the Prototype, and wanted to design a level that showcased the strengths of not only the game's combat, but also the aforementioned interactable entities in a way that felt diegetic to the game world, but also in a way that challenges players to utilize these entities in a gameplay sense. In doing so I conceived of a bank heist for the final level, with players making an explosive entrance and stealing loads of loot, and then fighting their way through streets of enemies to reach a boat at the end of a pier, making their grand escape.
While sadly not all of the entities that I had conceived and designed ended up in the final game, the few entities that made it to the final release I feel were the most impactful and elicited the best response from players.
Light posts for added which the ranged character “Thing” could zap with electricity to damage enemies within a radius around the base of the light post. Destructible brick walls were added for “Fist” to break through to find secret areas and to gain access to new paths for progression. Both of these entities supported dynamic gameplay In both traversal in combat, passively adding depth to the game world.
As a part of the player's escape at the end of the bank heist level, players are expected to take their loot to the end of the level by moving a truck full of money down the main street, All the while enemies are trying to reclaim the player's ill-gotten gains by grabbing it out of the bed of the truck. Using “Fists” punch attack, the truck can be punched forward causing it to roll down the street allowing players to progress, all the while “Thing” is able to use his ranged attack to zap the truck, damaging enemies trying to retrieve the players loot.
I was ecstatic to get to work on this project as both a gameplay and a level designer as it gave me the freedom to not only improve the core gameplay loop in a way that directly benefited my map and vice versa. Being able to work on a project like this, especially one with so many team members, was also an extremely collaborative experience that irreparably improved my design and iteration process.
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