Game, Level, Sound and UI Design

On Rails! is a musical game in which the player takes on the role of a locomotive that must change color in time with the music.

This game was made in 5 days, as part of my studies at ICAN, with the simple constraint of making a mobile game.

I worked on this project with :

Andrew "Kahnetop" JACQUES (Programmer, Tech Artist)
Ogier "Olomasck" SEROT (Level Designer, UI/Motion Designer)

Mario "Gigot" NICOLETTI (3D/2D Artist, UI Designer)

and Eliaz "Linger" LEBERT (Environment artist, Game Designer)

(Click on their names to access their respective portfolios)

In this project, I was responsible for Game Design, Level Design, Sound Design, Music Composition and UI.

During these five days, we had time to make a "vertical slice" of our game. This includes a menu and two levels. Let's start by talking about the gameplay.

On Rails! is in isometric 3D. The player takes on the role of a locomotive, moving along the rails by itself. When the player presses the screen, the locomotive changes color and appearance. There are three of them: red round, green triangle and blue square, and they cycle in that order.

In-game tutorial panel #0 - "Changing colors"

To score points, the player must press the button at the right time. To do so, there are colored tiles on the rails, and if the player presses them while being of the right color, he scores points. The closer the player presses to the center of the tiles, the higher the score.

In-game tutorial panel #1 - "Simple tap"

The entire level is based on the music being played. The tiles, and therefore the color changes, are based on the rhythm of the music. To play optimally, the player must combine what he sees on the screen with what he hears to help him get the timing right.

Slabs only allow you to earn points, while tunnels, as well as giving points, are a condition of defeat if the player is not in the right shape/color.

In-game tutorial panel #2 - "Tunnels"

Depending on the player's score, he or she will be awarded up to three stars at the end of the level.

The two levels of the game were made differently :

The first was entirely done by myself. I started by composing the musical base (which I had the team validate) and then I placed Kalimba notes directly on my composition. These notes represent the moments when the player must press the screen. After that, I integrated the music into the level and started building on top of it.

FL Studio : "OnRails! First Level"

For this first level, the musical structure was used to build the level design afterwards. That's why the patterns are repeated, to make the level as predictable and easy to learn as possible.

A screenshot of the first level of OnRails!

The second level was created in parallel with the first. Ogier Serot began designing a level, concentrating more on gameplay. The aim this time was to do the opposite, adding the music after creating the level. He also came up with the idea of adding several more complex patterns, tunnels and colored turns. As a result, this level is more difficult than the previous one, which is why it has been designated Level 2.

In-game tutorial panel #3 (not used) - "Double tap"

When I started working with him on the level design, we had a lot of work to do to prepare the level for music. First of all, we had to think in terms of bars and beats. I'd give him musical phrases (of 4 or 8 beats, for example) and he'd do what he wanted with them. Then, just by looking at the level, I could hum the rhythm of his patterns and he would modify them until we were both happy.

Three screenshots of the second level of OnRails!

We followed this process until we reached a level slightly longer than the first. As soon as I made my first musical suggestion, he agreed. Then I worked on getting the Kalimba notes at the right moment and checking that everything fell into the right rhythm.

We're very happy to have had the time to make two levels in just 5 days and have them tested. The players really liked our game, and we'd love to make more levels in the future.

The sound integration on Unity was done with Fmod and all the music was composed on FL Studio by myself.

Like our artistic direction, the music features organic instruments reminiscent of childhood. I used very Lo-FI percussion to mark the rhythm, as well as guitar, bass and flute. The Kalimba is the instrument used to signify the moments when the player must click on the screen. That's why the music is uncluttered and the sound of this instrument is louder, to make it more audible than the rest.

On the evening of the second day of work, I sent three music proposals to my colleagues so that they could choose the one that would best suit our gameplay intentions.

- The first was calm and relaxing.

First music proposition

- The second was more rhythmic and upbeat.

Second music proposition

- The third was more thematic, reminiscent of adventure and western.

Third music proposition

Everyone voted for their favorite music, and we had a tie on the first two. With external advice, we finally decided to go with the second proposal.

So I worked on it to get the music to exactly one minute. As I said earlier, all the music was done and then the first level was built. I had simply given Andrew Jacques, our programmer, the tempo I was using so that he could set the speed of the locomotive and I could easily build on it.

FL Studio : "OnRails! First Level"

The second piece of music was made after the creation of the first level. Factually, we were on the eve of the last day and I started making this music. Since I didn't have much time left, and everyone else had work to do, I didn't have time to make any proposals, and it had to be ready for integration the next day.

So I went back to the same instruments and the same overall structure. I didn't integrate the Kalimba at all, as I still had to coordinate the level design with it the following morning.

Preview of the music sent that evening

As I said earlier, I spent the next morning adapting the new level design to the music and finished the music by mid-day. All this had to be done very quickly, as it was our last day of work.

When I wasn't composing, I was working on the interfaces and more specifially on the menu. As the very first proposal of the project really pleased the band and that it corresponded to our game intentions, I decided to work on it to make our menu music. This music has the same instruments as all the others, but a calmer energy.

The rest of the sound design was mainly focused on interfaces and some feedback in play. I tried to make sounds in the toy theme with cute effects. There are very few because when the player is in a level, the music must be as audible as possible.

I took care of running the menu interfaces. They were previously made on Figma by Mario Nicoletti and Ogier Serot. I took their structure and adapted it to integrate it on Unity.

This allowed me to integrate the sounds and music of the menu quickly.

Figma references for the menu

While I was creating all the interactive menu interfaces, I asked the team several requests to make a better menu. The menu also follows a simplistic and childish artistic direction.

- Ogier Serot gave me the buttons and titles.
- Mario Nicoletti designed the logo.
- Eliaz did the background environnement.