*Current edits being made to UV texture of large rock.
As a senior at Maryville University, it was required for me to complete a senior capstone project. The goal was to exercise what we have learned in class, dive into exploring more specialized material, and receive firsthand feedback and guidance from professionals in the industry. Although it was required to be completed, this was the kind of project I have been dreaming of having the opportunity resources, and support to create.
I initially intended to create a playable demo of the game, but shifted focus after an analysis on the time constraints in combination with how much I needed to learn in order to create the 3D models as well as the game concept. My goal was to complete the models for the main gecko character, beetle enemy, and create the environment in order to give the viewer a sense of how the game would feel and the style it would have.
Through this creation process I have learned to create UV maps, paint 3D models, create rigs, apply weightmaps, and so much more in a matter of just a few months.
Concepts / Sketches
Left: Version 1 // Right: Topographic Version 2
Demo Storyboard Planning
FULL GAME Storyline Overview
A leopard gecko with no name “wakes up” in a distorted, purple-tinted forest with some items beside him. Upon picking up the items and completing the tutorial, the player is sent off into this post-apocalyptic world. Crystals quickly become apparent they are the prime “currency” in this world, as it seems every other creature is seeking them as well as the player in order to be sentient. Its magic is closely tied with organisms (such as slimes and bugs) gaining a new level of mental ability, allowing for more complex thoughts and “coming to life”. Through this new mental complexity, slimes have evolved to utilize rocks in order to create a humanoid, construct-like frame to do more damage and fight off competitors who are also in search of crystals.
As the player is hardly more than a few inches tall, the world is massive as the player discovers this is the aftermath of a catastrophe wiping out most creatures. Damaged houses, towns, and cities sized for humans are present and the player must get crafty in order to get around and explore. In these locations, information can be pieced together over what happened to cause this…
It all began with a warlock preparing a ritual to summon an army of undead by destroying nearby towns. A group of adventurers had been sent to end the threat but had been unsuccessful. The ritual had been completed, but didn’t go as planned.
The Warlock had a pet, a tiny desert rain frog, who was granted sentience through the Warlock’s studies into the destructive magic that he would later use to alter the world. The Warlock had regarded his attempts to grant the small amphibian a higher level of intelligence as a failure, given that the frog couldn’t speak. In reality, the attempts had been successful. The Warlock discovered the crystals had other capabilities, forever unaware of their ability to grant lesser organisms intelligence, and went on to use them in his necromantic ritual. The frog - having studied that in which his owner did given their proximity and his Master’s tendency to talk to himself - had become a Warlock in practice.
Spiteful and tiny, he struck during the ritual. The frog had propelled himself out of his tank and towards the relic, which the Warlock was using as a focal point. Using a spell of his own, he shattered the relic with a spell and then imbued a spell segment of his own creation into the ritual amidst the chaos. Upon completion of his spell, a massive wave of purple magic followed. The magic burst out from the relic, shooting the fragments in various directions away from the ritual site across the land before the wave continued to cover the world. With each human, mammal, and bird touched, they simply vanished. The wave destroyed buildings and toppled towers, leaving various ruins in its wake. Yet, on the other hand, the species the frog felt to be “unappreciated” and “deserved better” gained the same sentience the player is experiencing upon waking up in the game - who wakes up shortly after the wave dissipates, feeling different from before.
The player begins their journey exploring and trying out what they are capable of just as the little gecko would, as both are unfamiliar with this world. Through discovery within ruins, the player learns the story of how things came to be, as well as hints towards a potential solution to reverse the effects using the relic fragments.
The player has the ability to learn about the progression of fear the townspeople had towards the Warlock and their decision to confront him as well as the lives of each person in the party who was sent to do so. These can be found in the forms of letters, journals, diaries, or pieced together by analyzing the layout of the environment around the player.
In order to reverse the magic, the player must take all seven fragments to the site of the ritual and confront the frog himself, revealed to be Brexxtheleonomous Eredict-Neremixxim - a name he had given himself, feeling the name “Ben” his owner referred to him by wasn’t fitting. The player is able to understand the frog due to their biological connection but still hears occasional, habitual squeaks from the smaller being as he speaks.
The player must have a final “boss fight” with BEN, in which he summons various difficult and elite enemies to attack the player, requiring mastery of combat to beat. During this, the player needs to place all seven fragments on the pedestal but is only able to do it one at a time given their small stature. Upon placing all seven, one final crystal is needed to go in the center, binding them together to create what was originally assumed to be simply a disc, which is rather an amulet sized for a human to wear.
The player isn’t required to confront BEN upon discovering the knowledge, but upon doing so and beating the final battle, completes the game and the little gecko reverts back to his permanently non-sentient form, no longer playable as the player has a higher form of thought than the gecko can experience.
The game will then complete with a cinematic of the missing humans and creatures reappearing, and the party that had originally failed in their quest given the final opportunity to destroy the Master Warlock. It would pan out to reveal the slimes deconstructing back to their primitive forms, and green returning to nature as the metaphorical purple lens is removed.
Ben
*This document will be continually updated to include further progress.
