POCKET PLANET...
...is a minimalistic and casual mobile game, that lets you take care of a tiny planet and its environment.
The theme for this 3 week project was change. In Pocket Planet, change is represented through a flourishing or withering nature, depending on your daily actions.
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
I designed and developed a user oriented prototype that catches intuitive touch inputs and converts them into simple, understandable game mechanics.
Besides that, I took part in the design of the overall look and feel of the game, getting the colors, sizes and positioning right and adding visual and aural player feedback.
PROJECT FACTS
Theme: Change
Project duration: 3 weeks
Team size: 4
Game Engine: Unity 2019.1.8f1, C#
Target platform: Mobile, iOS & Android
Current status: Prototype, WIP
This project was developed during our 4th semester of the Game Design Bachelors program at HTW Berlin, DE:HIVE.
GAMEPLAY
This early prototype features many basic mechanics which allow the player to control what will flourish or wither on the planet.
The basic game-loop combines 3 core mechanics. Water plants, control the day and night cycle, skip time to grow plants. Through swipe, drag and pinch input the player is able to rotate the planet and get a closer look. Tapping plants reveals their current health condition. Tapping clouds allows the player to gather them and create a much bigger cloud, that is also able to rain and water plants.
Every plant has different needs. Not all the plants need water or sun, some only grow at night, some only grow in the desert or near a lake. A lot in the current prototype is based on experimentation and exploration. So far, there is no indepth encyclopedia that informs the player about all the different plants and their needs. A lot of attention is needed to see whats happening on your tiny planet.
The whole system is tile-based and every tile can have different states for being watered or dry, summed up to a global green or dry score. Based on that score, bigger entites like trees or palms will spawn and the atmosphere changes.
Through the GUI, the player is able to check what plants are unlocked, change the day and night cycle and skip to the next day.