Sid’s Adventure

My capstone project in the Game Development degree program. This is typically a team-based project similar to the mid-term where I worked on The Elemental palace, however due to scheduling conflicts I worked on the project alone. If you are interested in reading about the progress week-to-week, read the blog I wrote during development. To learn more about the development of the project, scroll down to read more, or click “Download Now!” to download the game for yourself and try it out! (Windows Only - Keyboard + Mouse Controls)

Download Now for Windows (3.4gb)

Sid’s Adventure is a third-person sci-fi action game. It stars a modest robot named Sid, an underdog who finally gets his chance at adventure when he accidentally discovers a mysterious crate in a junkpile containing an upgrade chip that upgrades him giving him the abilities of a secret agent. Not all is fun and games, however, as this briefcase contains proof of the Bug Kings plot to throw the galaxy into chaos. As the Bug Kings minions converge on Sid’s position, players must navigate the dangers of the junkyard while defending themselves from the onslaught of deadly bugs who are determined to stop Sid from exposing their leaders plans. Players have a variety of tools to survive including essential secret agent skills like knowledge of high-tech weapons, platforming skills, and hand-to-hand combat for close quarters combat.

Development

The development of Sid’s Adventure took place over a 4 month period, with the following schedule:

Month 1 - Pre-production

Week 1 - Pitching Phase

The first week I needed to come up with 3 different games that I would potentially want to work on for capstone. I needed to make a pitch document and video proposal for each project. The documents and videos went to a voting round where various staff members analyzed my pitches and determined which game was the most feasible given that this was a solo project and only had a 3 month development cycle. I was also required to create a tiered feature list of what’s most important, important, least important and nice to have features.

Week 2 - Design Phase

The second week was structured around creating initial technical documentation detailing the technical structure of the game. This includes things like which game engine I would be using, the engines version, the input types and what kind of audio engine I would be using. I also needed to create a Jira board with all the games features to complete and their priorities. At this stage I was also to have a barebones gameplay demo which you can see below.

Week 3 - Technical Planning Phase

The third week was finalizing all the documentation from the second week. This week also had an upgraded build showing a better sense of scale. I also needed to set up version control for my project. I chose to use perforce as it integrates with Unreal Engine extremely well. Getting it setup was a little bit more complicated than I was used to. I’ve previously used Git for all my other projects. Perforce was easier to use once it was all set up than Git for this type of project thought.

Week 4 - Prototype Build

The final week of the first month was a demonstration of the main game mechanics. The requirements were to have:

Installer created for the project
Gameplay video explaining game and action on screen
Updated ReadMe.txt

Month 2 - Development Continues

The second month of development was a month of implementing the game critical features:

Player Locomotion
HUD
Menus
1 Enemy

You can read my entire feature list here.

Month 3 - Development Continues

The third month was more development. This time working on important features that weren’t critical to gameplay but would have created a better experience for the user.

Pause Menus
Health Drops
2nd Enemy
Destructible Objects

Month 4 - Polish Month

The final month of the project was a polish month. It was less about implementing new features but polishing up existing gameplay features. This was an extremely fun month because I got a chance to ramp up the fun factor. Making sure things were polished and gameplay was solid was a lot of fun. It was nice to work on the technical side for the first few months and then at the end work on something more creative. Adding music, sound effects and lighting was really fun. I also implemented a last-minute easy mode so that people can finish the game and see the story ending. The easy mode adds both keys needed to unlock the boss battle, and a megacoin which will allow the player to buy all the items in the game.