A Missed Walk_MidtermProject

Game  Description

The game I decided to make is called A Missed Walk.  You play as a dog named Derby, trying to find her owner so he can take you on a walk. Explore the house, trying to find where your owner has disappeared to. However, you may be a small white furry dog you mighty bark and use it to traverse the environment.  The gameplay is of a flat game with a simple pastel art style where you have the ability to bark. I choose to create this game because lately, I have been missing my dog named Derby.  She is a rescue, and one of her many quirks is waking me up in the early hours of the morning to walk her.  I thought it would be fun to explore my morning routine from my dog's perspective as she traverses the house to find me.  Although she has lived with us for years, it always seems like she gets lost in the house to the point where she will bark until someone finds her.  She's a small white dog but thinks she is a Great Dane with a mighty bark.

Your Process

My initial thoughts were to have an adventure type game where my dog would battle enemies to get to the door. It would involve picking up items with multiple abilities and branching paths.  I quickly learned this would be out of my unity skill level and decided to cut back and develop a plan.  I set up a four-stage plan of attack.  The first was to make a flat game where you find your owner.  Then add collision and a barking mechanic. I also wanted to try an inventory system and finally parent the dog to the owner after finding the owner.  I ended up getting to stage two, where my bark works in a flat game, and there is a door to destroy.  I tried a tone of different mechanics that ended up not working, so instead, I focused on fleshing out the environment.  As the map was modeled from my home, I decided to draw some game objects that resembled my family home décor.

Development Challenge

At first, my project was  way too large scale for my knowledge of Unity, so I quickly had to pivot direction into something a lot smaller.  Even as I'm turning this in, there was a lot more I wanted to add.  The most immense development challenge I faced was the player's primary ability, which was barking. The player would use a ray cast to make contact with a door press space and a bark would happen.  This would delete the door and allow the player to move forward.  It was easy to create a raycast that deleted objects. However, to focus this ability on a single item turned out to be more difficult.  I was able to make that bark work finally by through some sleuthing, but unfortunately, two problems remain first is the door will delete anywhere on the map as long as the player is facing the direction of the door, and they press the bark button.  I fixed this with gameplay by attaching the bark ability to a button the player would most likely not press.  I then left the player a note by the door to press the odd button to trigger the bark.  I also wanted to add a bark sprite but could not figure how to switch sprites for a single ability.