This game is the result of my final project at the SRH Heidelberg. The task was to create a serious game within 6 weeks.
Bear Mate is a 3D first-person puzzle platformer game. The player must solve various puzzles using logical thinking and understanding of simple physics. During the game the player can control 2 characters, which leads to more complex puzzles.
Focus:
6 weeks is relatively short for what I had originally planned. I had to discard many of my ideas because of that. In this project I did a lot of programming and a lot of level design, including, for the first time, cutscenes, which I always wanted to do for a game, and character animations. The scope of this game is my largest project so far.
Story:
The player runs through the forest in a cutscene and is suddenly attacked by a bear. The player runs away from the bear, but as he flees from the bear he falls through a hole into an underground building. The bear stays outside the hole and moves away. The player now must find his way out of this building. In doing that, the player discovers that the underground building is some sort of scientific research facility. After the player has escaped from the facility, the player is back in the forest and encounters the bear again, but the bear is stuck in a bear trap. The player helps the bear and as thanks the bear joins the human and helps him to get out of the forest.
Control:
WASD for movement, E for interaction, spacebar for jumping, mouse for viewing direction and esc to show the menu.
From this point on it is possible to control the human and the bear. The player is told that he can now use the Switch and Follow function. You can tell from the UI which character is controlled and whether it follows.
Features:
- Collect objects like keys.
- Carry boxes (human only), stones (bear only).
- Use Jump Pads, elevators and switches.
- Bridges and pressure platforms.
- Doors which open only when all necessary puzzles are completed.
- River in which only the bear can swim.
- A Scale that opens a door when the desired weight is correct.
- Animated a character for the first time and also created cutscenes.
- Easter Egg character “Rian” from the “Untitled City Game”.
- 6 different levels.
- and much more
The Bear:
I modeled and animated a bear for the first time. The bear has about 8k faces and all triangulated for Unity.
Some polygons unfortunately overlap, which I noticed much too late. However, this is not particularly noticeable in the texture and in the game, since the texture is fur and thus the seams are hardly visible.
For the running animation I used a video template from YouTube. The rig is a Rigify rig.
What is still planned:
More levels, more puzzles, more story. The game has a lot of potential to become a successful game.
Multiplayer feature: player 1 controls the human, player 2 controls the bear. At the beginning they do a few easy puzzles alone and then both storylines merge in the bear trap cutscene.
Animals in the Forest: The forest is relatively empty despite the soundscape of a lot of birds chirping. There could be some birds flying around or sitting in trees, wild deer which you see briefly and then run and hide or fish in the river which the bear can eat.
More beautiful environment: Since we were only allowed to use free assets, the game looks like it. I have some nice forest assets that I will be happy to use in this game.
Better save system: Better is always possible. My save system does not feel flexible. It is optimized only for this game.
Sounds: I’ve never been good with sounds and it shows. The bear and human could use some sounds when moving.
Skip Cutscenes: Unfortunately, the player has no way to skip the cutscenes so far. I want
the player to be able to decide for himself if he wants to watch them or not.
