Luke Frohling

Writer / Game Developer / Educator / Actor
Link to the game online

Concept: Clear drain pipes while avoiding deadly animals

Game Play: top down, 2D, WASD/arrow controls with firing element (space), one level, each pickup has 10 drain cleaner pickups and drains require 20 hits to clear (total of 80 direct hits), animals destroy drain cleaners on contact, player is killed (ie. game is over) when touching any part of an animal (or gets too close).

Audio / Music: music loops unbroken even when scene reloads, sound effects for nearly all interactions and diagenics

Graphics: (with screenshots). Simple models, only two of which animate (the death skull and the flying drain cleaner) but all others are static. See Appendix A for screenshots.

Distribution: Itch only (https://lfrohling.itch.io/pipe-cleaner)

Sources of audio/graphics:

  • Graphics – Water (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/water/stylize-water-texture-153577)
  • Graphics – Death Skull (https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/skull-3d-1452999)
  • Graphics – Rat (https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/maya-rat-games/611560)
  • Graphics – Pipes base model (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/urban/yughues-free-concrete-pipes-13277)
  • Audio – Picking up drain cleaner (https://freesound.org/people/SoundDawg101/sounds/171635/)
  • Audio – Enemy spawning from water (https://freesound.org/people/JustInvoke/sounds/446109/)
  • Audio – Incidental FX (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/sound-fx/foley/water-splash-pack-14039)
  • Audio – Music – “Stupid Dancer” – (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/music/free-music-tracks-for-games-156413)
  • Audio – Pipe is clear (https://freesound.org/people/brittmosel/sounds/529300/)
  • Audio – Hit pipe with drain cleaner (https://freesound.org/people/Joao_Janz/sounds/478685/)
  • Audio – Animal hit player (https://freesound.org/people/LucasDuff/sounds/467701/)
  • Audio – Animal disregards drain cleaner (https://freesound.org/people/batchku/sounds/9989/)
  • Audio – No drain cleaner at hand (https://freesound.org/people/Josethehedgehog/sounds/390353/)
  • Audio – Winning sound (https://freesound.org/people/Sami_Kullstr%C3%B6m/sounds/387947/)
  • Audio – Restarting a game (https://freesound.org/people/melisandepope/sounds/557132/)
  • Audio – Let’s Do This (me)

Future Goals/development:

  1. Option to mute Music and sound effects, additional spatial sound effects based on enemy type and proximity to player, button pressing sound effects.
  2. More consistent art style (buttons, enemies, player, environment)
  3. Multiple levels with changes in numbers/size/location of pipes, increased amount and/or speed of animals/enemies, enemy paths changed in later levels, additional enemies, shrinking play area for player, reduced ammunition refills or increased time taken to spawn, time limit on level(s), enemies having additional AI (like being drawn to player, changing opacity/visibility, etc), etc, etc
  4. Differing viewing angle based on level, or player preference
  5. Bullet time on winning ammo/draino last shot, less reward on spamming the space bar to fill a pipe (ie. cooldown timer on either throwing, picking up/using, or the drains recieving the drain cleaner(s).
  6. Animation of player character and of animals (walking/attacking/spawning/leaving the area).
  7. Menu with selectable mute on music/sound effects, restart button
  8. Taking feedback into the game and improving it based on playtesting of others
  9. Back story accessible in game
  10. Way of storing or sharing the timer so that people can rate themselves against to see how fast they can complete the game (or how long they can stay alive- I have built the timers so they can track/display playtime in seconds, minutes, hours, and even DAYS)
  11. Stats on game over that can be emailed to someone (ie. how long played, how many ammo pickups, how many wasted ammo, etc).
  12. Anchor the Pipe text status into the world using steps as shown on this page (https://forum.unity.com/threads/anchor-ui-image-to-gameobject.364584/) and/or make the pipe transition more graphically apparent in a series of steps.

Feedback received (abridged):

  • From Yuka: Maybe have circle at front of character to show animals how close, 1st level have draino at bottom and second level have the draino further up, It’s got the “one last go” feeling to it :), need info that animal can bite you for the side (circle would help), first part just slow animal and second level have faster, have power to block animal (once) if I unblock a drain (key to activate or not?) annoying that tail bites person, maybe better to control with mice?, way to check ammo (important don’t know), wants funfaire (fanfare) and water comes from goal maybe have gold or a seal that would protect me from animal,
  • From me watching Yuka: Add keyboard for buttons, let’s do this actually worked! Maybe levels where animals don’t eat the ammo, tell them that collecting draino is silly (max carry of 10). Restart button exactly where the start button is, maybe warning in earlier level that an animal is coming
  • From Ben (ex-student/compatriot of SAE): Weird having draino pass through left side of snakes. So overall rebalancing of colliders.

Length of development: From code start (17th September 2021) to upload to itch.io (28th October 2021) = Wow. That’s 41 days.

Abridged development diary: See other posts

Contact details of author/owner: Luke Frohling, Lfrohling01@yahoo.com.au, O466_797_28O (Australia)

Appendix A (screenshots)

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