Creating games and fun experiences is my passion!
I am a fast learner who self-taught programming, modeling and animation and successfully published two mobile games on google play store in 3 months.
I do and love anything related to games and game design.
Play as George Stephenson, the Father of Railways. Design the railway system and serve the United Kingdom to become the greatest power of the time
Game Jam: Historically Accurate Game Jam #6
Theme: Industrial Revolution
Genre: Simulation, Management
Team Size: 4
Role: Director / Game Designer / Programmer
Development Process - Project Goal
I had certain goals in mind when designing the historical game jam project.
1. Must be a complete game
2. Simple and Fun
3. Accurate representation of theme
For me, the most important rule in game development is to not deliver a broken game that gives players a bad experience. Given we only have 1 week of development time, I tend to design games with simple core mechanics and add layers of options to enhance the gameplay experience. My initial plan was to use a level junction to determine destination and control a miniature railroad train model to ensure that coal was delivered to factories on time. I am glad my teammates liked it and chose to work on my idea.
Art Style
Everyone loves railway models and would love to have a huge set at home and watch it all day. Right? It would be amazing to have a railway model game where you can build any model and scene you want.
This was my first vision of what I imagined the game would look like.
Factory requests are the most important mechanic that drives players to make decisions and provide game currency for upgrade systems and scoring systems. Player must calculate shortest distance and sort order priorities.
Cargo control is added to enhance the flexibility of resource controls. Wine (Luxury - substitute as any resource) is added as a reward resource to balance the complexity of resource calculation on higher request levels.
The train upgrade system was implemented for players to spend money and reward their hard work instantly with new upgrades. The upgrade system also allows players to catch up with increased difficulty.
I love to control the game values minimal and adjust by increasing value of the area with weak performance. Player should face challenges and put some efforts for rewards. The factory request system is designed to increase difficulty over time while having limitations and not giving players headaches to play with. Player gains more score and money when completing complex request.
The level was divided into 3 area for players to make decision according to their player style. A reduced rest area is added later to increase flexibility.
Randomness
The resource spawn (except luxury) is randomized every game to increase the replay value and force the player to use a different strategy every time.
The factory request is generated at a random factory level to provide a smooth experience to the player without getting overwhelmed with max difficulty in the late game.
AI Train is the final layer that will intensify the gameplay experience in the late game. After a long resource management calculation, the AI train will refresh the play style and was intended to end the game with around 150 points since the game score reflects the approximate GDP growth of the UK during the Industrial Revolution. The AI train would stop and avoid smashing right into a player's wagon in order to maintain fair gameplay. It must be the player's mistake that triggers game over.
Brake control is added to give the player a larger time window at the cost of losing delivery time.
In the original design the additional factories and resources will be spawn at random location, players may spend money to build railway to gain route advantage of their choice. However, due to time and technical issue I have to cancel it and made a prebuild level.
The level junction was designed with arrow controls in order to clarify the direction of trains coming from all directions.
Had so much fun and learned a lot in this game jam. Thank you so much for the team (Sergio - 3D modeler, Abhiyanhar - programmer) and my lovely wife who designed those amazing UI for the game!
