Introduction
Piñatatane was made by 9 students, Game Programmers, Game Designers and Game Artists at Rubika Supinfogame in Valenciennes, France.
This is an online party game. The project objective was to realize a game, as sellable as possible on the Steam platform. Within the group I was a Game Designer, the Project coordinator and the UX Designer.
The project was partially carried out by teleworking.
Purpose of the game
Piñatatane necessitate 4 players, each of them embodies a piñata who need to collect as many candies as possible in an allotted time. Players have many abilities to beat each others, and steal adversaries’ candies.
Game Presentation
During a game, players have 3 minutes to collect as many candies as possible and more than other players. To do that, many candies appear regularly in specific places of the area.
Players need to dodge traps:
• Balloons that fend off players
• Cactus that stuns players during few seconds.
• Balloons that fend off players
• Cactus that stuns players during few seconds.
Players have 2 abilities:
• Dash that propels players forward and kicks an adversary if there is a collision
• Shield that pushes back players if there is a collision
• Dash that propels players forward and kicks an adversary if there is a collision
• Shield that pushes back players if there is a collision
When a player collides with a cactus, wall or is pushed by another player, the player loses candies, and other players can take them.
Roles within the project
During the project I was project manager, so:
• I coordinated the team
• I organized the Game Design team schedule
• I coordinated the team
• I organized the Game Design team schedule
On my Game Design role:
Established a game system and the 3C of the game with two others Game Designers
• Designed the UX to be understandable by casual players
• Organized many playtest sessions each week, with a form and debate between playtesters
• Designed the UX to be understandable by casual players
• Organized many playtest sessions each week, with a form and debate between playtesters
Conclusion
Game Design
Contrary to a solo game, the game design approach is different for a multiplayer game. In this type of game, arena rules and players unpredictability had many repercussions on the players behaviour.
Also, the character controller by his importance, represents an important part of the work
Also, the character controller is very important for an arena battler, so it necessitated a lot of work.
UX Design
My biggest difficulties were when we made small changes on UX or level design, because they could cause significant impacts on players’ behavior.
One of our game intentions was to be « Festive », it was a constraint because we had a lot of multicolored moving elements, these elements reduced the perception of feedbacks by the player.
Lastly, making the game accessible for casual players, imposed me to use simple and clear signage.
