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Beelder

Shoot and build to defend your beehive against crazy toys.

Beelder is a local co-op 2D vertical scroller shooter in which players control mechanical bees that must protect their beehive from obstacles and enemies. To do this, players can modify the hive by adding or subtracting hexagon-shaped honey pieces, with different shapes and functions that can aid their progress. The objective of the game is to protect the hive and queen for as long as possible.


Fact sheet

Genre

local co-op 2D vertical scroller shooter

Platform

WebGL, PC

Project Length

6 weeks

Engine

Unity

Team Size

4

Trailer

Responsibilities


  • Concept design in collaboration with the team.

  • Contributed to the creative direction of the game.

  • Game progression system design

  • Utilized designer tools and systems created by the programmer to implement semi-procedurally generated levels with handcrafted sections.

  • Implemented various assets, including art, animations, and sounds.

  • Designed and implemented entities' movement patterns and behaviors (enemies, projectiles, etc.).

  • Tuned and balanced gameplay iteratively to achieve the intended game feel and difficulty progression.

Project Gallery

Design Process

Project Description

This project is developed as a semester project as a co-op game for which I have collaborated with a programmer, an artist and a narrative designer.


Design approach

  • Focused on cooperation through shared goals and two main mechanics: building and shooting

  • Aimed at creating a local party game with a playful and cozy experience

  • Collaborated closely with the programmer to design systems that allowed me to implement and fine tune the game iteratively


Challenges

  • Merging genres for a casual play setting

  • Designing semi-randomly generated levels with difficulty progression

  • Designing enemies, implementing and categorizing them using the custom entity system

  • Balancing gameplay and tuning interrelated systems


Greatest achievement

  • Successfully worked with complex custom-made systems

  • Implemented the entire frontend of the game


Outlook (with more time)

  • Refine game balance

  • Design more enemies

  • Improve the game feel and player control


Learning Objective/Outcome

  • Experience in working with complex, overengineered custom tools.

  • Expanding my knowledge in unity

  • Designing systems and understanding system-driven games




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