Manikins
The Game
Manikins is a sidescrolling jump'n'run game about three enchanted toys. They adventure through a child's bedroom altered by the magic of fantasy to reach their lost treasure. Also, the floor is lava!
The player can switch on the fly between 3 characters: the knight, the thief and the wizard. Each character has a unique set of skills the player can use.
The knight sports a higher health pool and a shield, making lava less deadly and he can protect himself against projectiles. The thief has a grappling hook he can use for vertical mobility and a slingshot to hit targets from a distance. Finally, the wizard has the ability to summon a wooden cube and levitate objects to create platforms and solve mechanical puzzles.
The Creation Process
The team consisted of David Mehlen (Programming), Eva Goodnight (Project Management) and myself (Art & Game Design).This was a university project where we had to clone Frozenbyte's Trine. In 10 weeks we had to dissect the game and identify it's "essence" - as our professor would call it. We did thorough research on it's artstyle, technical realization and game design. Then we attempted to clone and put our own spin on it.
We really underestimated this one. At first, we were like "Cloning Trine? No big deal!" - then we remembered we're programmers and our artistic potential is zero. To top it off, the course demanded extensive documentation and project management. To get everything done, we split the workload: David would do nothing but code, Eva was in charge of project management and I'd do game design. I'd also leave my comfort zone and become an artist for 10 weeks.
My game designer half was done rather quickly. I had to reduce Trine's features and mechanics to the absolute minimum needed to convey it's vision. To do this, I've analyzed the game and created a pool of features we could choose from. With the help of game critics, Kim Charmie's model on "Core Gameplay Mechanics" and Yee's "Gamer Motivation Model" I then determined which of these features are essential, optional or even detrimental to the game. On that basis I kicked out everything except a handful of physics based puzzles and the "three characters"-mechanic.
My biggest challenge was finding a way on how we could clone Trine's mood. The quality of it's art and the feeling of playing through a fairytale is what made the game special. I could never dream to reach this level of visual polish in 10 weeks with zero experience in 3D art. After playing around in Blender, working through some tutorials, I knew we had to find a completely new setting; medieval fantasy just wasn't possible at that point in time. It had to be a setting we could realize by using mostly basic shapes and very little textures. Time was short and the number of assets I had to create was rather large.
I had very little to work with and, after trying different levels of abstraction and simplification, I decided to go with a child's bedroom. Childen's toys are mostly made up of basic shapes and colors and the mood could be created through good lighting. We can still tell fairytales in a convincing matter and everybody is familiar with the concept of "the floor is lava".
These massive reductions to Trine's feature count and visual fidelity - while still making sure it's core stays intact - made it possible to create a convincing prototype that carried the essence of Trine in only 10 weeks.
My game designer half was done rather quickly. I had to reduce Trine's features and mechanics to the absolute minimum needed to convey it's vision. To do this, I've analyzed the game and created a pool of features we could choose from. With the help of game critics, Kim Charmie's model on "Core Gameplay Mechanics" and Yee's "Gamer Motivation Model" I then determined which of these features are essential, optional or even detrimental to the game. On that basis I kicked out everything except a handful of physics based puzzles and the "three characters"-mechanic.
My biggest challenge was finding a way on how we could clone Trine's mood. The quality of it's art and the feeling of playing through a fairytale is what made the game special. I could never dream to reach this level of visual polish in 10 weeks with zero experience in 3D art. After playing around in Blender, working through some tutorials, I knew we had to find a completely new setting; medieval fantasy just wasn't possible at that point in time. It had to be a setting we could realize by using mostly basic shapes and very little textures. Time was short and the number of assets I had to create was rather large.
I had very little to work with and, after trying different levels of abstraction and simplification, I decided to go with a child's bedroom. Childen's toys are mostly made up of basic shapes and colors and the mood could be created through good lighting. We can still tell fairytales in a convincing matter and everybody is familiar with the concept of "the floor is lava".
These massive reductions to Trine's feature count and visual fidelity - while still making sure it's core stays intact - made it possible to create a convincing prototype that carried the essence of Trine in only 10 weeks.
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