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Project Goals
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2D platformer in Unity
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Physics based fire extinguisher mechanic
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Player plays as a firefighter saving people
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Short fast paced levels
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Fully polished
Swift Evacuation
Game Systems
Team Members
Reece Enthoven: Systems Programmer/Designer
Zach Bezold: Designer Level Design
Carson White: Sound Designer Music/Sound Fx
Nicholas Rowen: Tileset Art Pixel Art Fire Animation
Adrian Forest: Character Art/Animations Environment Art/Pixel Art BG/Title screen Art
Character Animation
The main challenge of the animation for swift evacuation was the cross disciplinary aspect of it. To make sure the final animation came out right, a lot of discussion was needed between me and our artist to make sure that all the different components of the player were split appropriately to be animated in engine. Our end result turned out great, with the player being able to point their extinguisher in any direction seamlessly
Fire Extinguisher
My goal with the fire extinguisher was to create something fully physics based that felt like each particle was contributing to put out the fire. For this the unity particle system was used in a way I had not used it before. Each particle was given its own hitbox and would collide with walls in the level. Upon colliding with any fire, the particle would deal a certain amount of damage to the fire, with the fire being extinguished when out of health. Although this is incredibly inefficient, with some tweaking there was no effect on the games performance, and the final effect feels really satisfying!
Saving NPCs
The core mechanic of Swift Evacuation is saving NPCs. In the game this is done by throwing them out the window to "safety". For this a few different key mechanics needed to be implemented. The first is the ability to pick up and throw NPCs at will. This was done by disabling the NPCs hitbox while being held and making them a child object of the players holding transform. From there the player can left click to reenable the hitbox and launch the NPC in the direction of the mouse. For the actual act of throwing them out of the window, effects were essential, mainly that being the reaction of the NPCs. For this we went to the sound studio at our college and recorded ourselves screaming into a microphone, which is then played anytime an NPC exits a window. Finally, glass breaking particles and a glass breaking sound were added to complete the effect. These together lead to a satisfying and funny main mechanic.
Key Takeaways
Swift Evacuation is my favorite project I've worked on so far. For years I had been learning unity by myself and only way able to make projects within my own skillset. For swift evacuation I finally had an opportunity to work with a cross discipline team to make something really special. Having already made a few platformers up to this point on my own, Swift Evacuation felt like my first opportunity to make a game anyone would actually want to play. After putting in 100 hours in 2 1/2 weeks I'm really happy with the final product. Everyone on the team did great, and made something we're all really proud of. I hope to work on a cross discipline team again soon, and make something even better!
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