DonuTilt

Level & Audio Designer // 5 Devs // Unity

Android (Mobile) // 10 Weeks / 150 Hours

Game Synopsis

DonuTilt is a single-player mobile puzzle game where the player is tasked with helping the Donut Hero save their friends from a jelly explosion!

As the Donut Hero progresses through the donut box, they must interact with gravity through continuous tilt and discrete rotation mechanics to navigate a variety of sweet elements, including jelly splotches, waffle-cone spikes, bouncy gumdrops, and more. Collecting sprinkles along the way might lead to a sweet surprise!

DonuTilt features a cute & ‘sweet’ artstyle that makes our intrepid Donut Hero even more lovable.

The game is set in a donut fantasy world where a jelly explosion has left several donuts stuck in jelly. Our Donut Hero helps the player understand controls in level 1 (serving as a tutorial) and DonuTilt contains 11 more levels as the Hero rescues more friends and fills the donut box.

The game is developed in Unity for Android devices with an intended resolution of 2000x1200 px.

Design Iteration

Inception

During our Team Formation Day, we were given ~2 hours to brainstorm a concept for our mobile game and create sample prototype materials. Our team worked through a variety of ideas represented in the above mind map, but unanimously settled on a gyroscopic concept of rotating a room with tilt controls. Though we spent our first milestone refining a prototype for full 360-degree gyroscope controls, we were able to efficiently pivot to our final mechanic of tapping to discretely rotate the world by 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise, and tilting continuously up to 45 degrees in either direction for fine movement controls. This resulted in our levels transitioning from sprawling, maze-like designs to a zoomed-out world contained in a single square so the player could evaluate the entire space at once and plan their movements accordingly.

Level 4 (POCG, VS)

Developed in about one hour from paper prototype to engine implementation, this level began as our game’s core level for both our Proof of Concept: Gameplay (POCG) and Vertical Slice (VS) sprints and would later become Level 4 in the shipped game. This was our first attempt at shifting gears from the arcade-style roller to the final puzzle game. Through some experimentation, we quickly learned that the most engaging levels had the player start more or less opposite of their goal – the Donut Friend – as opposed to the Donut Friend being somewhere in the center of the level. Because our playspace was relatively small, this helped maximize our space and give the player multiple paths to the goal with solid circular flow as opposed to being overly linear – one of the core issues we discovered in our Proof of Concept: Technology (POCT) iteration.

Level 4 serves as the transition level from the easier tutorial-style levels where the player is taught the main game objects of Platforms, Jelly, Spikes, and Sprinkles. This level in particular places an emphasis on Jelly in central locations to give the player many options on where to move towards next. Additionally, it further gives the player agency with the option of pursuing Sprinkles: they can choose to take an easy and relatively straightforward path to their Donut Friend, or they can re-use the Jelly in new ways to safely reach the different Sprinkles.

As we expanded from 6 levels to 12, this level served as the foundation for our design – particularly in developing a solid center “hub” that gave the player multiple paths and options.

Level 7 (Alpha)

As we gained our second level designer and were able to reach our stretch goal of 12 levels during our Alpha sprint, the intermediate levels became more difficult to design. We wanted to provide appropriate teaching moments and challenges for the remaining game objects – Gumdrops, Cookie Crumble Platforms, and Gravity-Affected Pocky Platforms – without the game feeling too complex and overwhelming. In these levels, we experimented with different placements of the Donut Friend, such as in the center of the level in Level 6, before ultimately deciding it was best if the Donut Friend was placed opposite of the player’s starting position, as discussed in the Level 4 Write-Up.

The Gumdrops were particularly challenging to design for: they are meant to provide the player with more opportunities to traverse the level through bouncing them like a trampoline, but – especially with their proximity to spikes – we discovered through playtesting that many players were hesitant to use them. As a result, we worked to make these gumdrops feel more safe by reducing the hazards surrounding them, as well as by directing the players towards “safe” elements such as Jelly as they bounced.

Through frequent iteration, Level 7 ended as a solid intermediate-challenge for our dozen levels.

Level 12 (Alpha)

Level 12 serves as the final level of the game, and is thus the most challenging and complex. We wanted the player to be able to utilize and demonstrate mastery of all game objects – Jelly, Gumdrops, Cookie Crumble Platforms, and Gravity-Affected Pocky Platforms – that they have been learning throughout the twelve levels. It was a particular challenge in our later levels to create levels that were interesting and complex without overwhelming the player – especially with a relatively limited playspace. This level does a good job of offering the player multiple routes to victory and promoting interconnected use of the game objects. For example, to reach the Green Sprinkle, the player must break the lower-right set of Cookie Crumble platforms and, while in the lower-right splotch of Jelly, rotate the world 90 degrees counter-clockwise to move the Pocky to create a safe platform over the spikes surrounding the Green Sprinkle. This level serves as an appropriately challenging and complex final level for our Donut Hero!

Responsibilities

In this team of four-turned-five, there was an overall even distribution of responsibilities. I began this project as the sole level designer, and thus was initially responsible for creating all levels of the game, from paper drafts to implementation in Unity. I worked with the team to brainstorm core mechanics of the game and helped lead the pivot to a more puzzle-based rather than arcade-roller game during our Proof of Concept: Gameplay milestone.

Halfway through the project, our team gained another amazing level designer, who was able to help us realize our stretch goals of 12 levels. As she came on board, I had to work to explain my design process and concepts so that she could make levels in the same style. Of these 12 levels, I built around 8, and helped ensured that all 12 were cohesive.

As a level designer, I worked in a cross-discipline capacity, particularly with our programmers to implement scripts, as well as with our artist to implement all art assets into Unity and create animations.

In addition to level design responsibilities, I was also the main person responsible for both sound design and documentation, often taking on the role of a producer. I wrote all music for the game, and sourced, edited, and implemented sound effects from Guildhall’s licensed sound library. I always lead our documentation process, including Sprint Retrospectives & Reviews for every milestone, as well as our Game Design Document. Both of these roles were a direct transfer from my freelance work as a composer/sound designer and stage manager in the theatre industry.

Throughout the process, I found myself in a pseudo-Game Designer position, often leading team discussions and offering my thoughts as to how the game should look and feel as a whole. Though, I always tried my very best to illicit constructive and collaborative team discussion throughout the entire process and encouraged my teammates to also lead in their own ways.

Post-Mortem

What Went Well

Teamwork

I could not be happier with how our team worked out. I think we found a really nice balance between all of our experiences and workstyles, and we were able to help each other learn. For the most part we had fruitful team discussion when we were in the groove – like our brainstorming day – and everyone became more comfortable speaking up as we got to know each other better. I’m really happy with how Stella integrated into the team. I did my best to facilitate and encourage the teamwork, and I’m glad we gelled the way we did!

Work Ethic

I’ve long considered myself to not be very naturally gifted at much, but that I make up for it with my work ethic, and I think that holds true for this process. I tended to be the one to keep us focused when we inevitably started to get a little too distracted, and I think the game reflects sheer effort given the time we had.

Leadership

I was not expecting it, but I think I ended up functioning as a pseudo-GD throughout this process. I’d love to GD officially, but I was expecting it’d be more of a “4-5 co-GD’s” in a team this small, so it was surprising when I found the team looking to me for tasks and sometimes even a “final say” for certain ideas. I’ve talked about it in my last few peer evals, but I hope I did a good job of taking this extra responsibility while simultaneously encouraging the rest of the team to also make their voices heard, and to not have too much of a firm hand on the creative process. I like to think it ended up being pretty balanced, and I got more comfortable with guiding people towards the end!

What Went Wrong

Power Over Documentation

I definitely took on the vast majority of the documentation & production tasks. While that may initially sound like a good thing, I do think it’s tied to my work as a stage manager, which always had the undercurrent of “I need to be the one to do this thing so I can make sure it’s right” – it’s a trust/control issue. In this specific case I think the rest of the team was happy to have a lighter load with documenting, but still – it’s not good for me to hold on so tight.

Overtime

As a team, we were generally pretty good about keeping the work to our core hours, but I think I pushed that boundary a bit individually; there were quite a few days of Alpha and Beta where the 12:30p endtime gradually turned into 12:45p… Also, the audio work was extra. I can sort of justify it because I felt my core hours were pretty solidly dedicated to LD and Production tasks, and audio was something I took on for fun, but still. I think I’m more concerned about tendencies like this to lead to burnout.

Team Accountability

This is bit of a nebulous one, but I think while my work ethic was good, I’m not sure I did a great job keeping others accountable when not working on TGP work. It’s a weird grey area at this level since we’re all at the same point in the hierarchy, so on one hand I think it would’ve been weird (and maybe hurt the team dynamic) if I had called people out – but perhaps that was me not being assertive.*

What I Learned

Game Development Pipelines

I gained a great deal of experience with the Unity engine, specifically in a 2D format. Prior to this course and entering Guildhall, the most I had done in-engine was start to work through their basic scripting course, “Create with Code”. However, juggling an intensive full-time career meant I was extremely limited on how much I could learn on my own. Throughout this extremely fast process, I learned a great deal very quickly, including level design implementation, creating animations, implementing audio, creating UI and menu flows, and more.

Transferrable Skills

Coming into Guildhall, I thought that I would be far “behind” my peers: I had done almost nothing in game development besides attempt to put together a portfolio for my Guildhall application. However, I quickly found that my time as a musician and a theatre-maker provided me with many more transferrable skills than I thought. Aside from managing heavy workloads with not quite enough time, I came in with vital collaboration skills. I was able to use my experiences bridging disciplines in other industries to help unify and lead the team, and I could not be happier with our team dynamics.

True Potential for Game Development

As I have spoken to privately with a couple professors, coming to Guildhall was a very intense and last-minute decision: I did not want to uproot my life in New York. After great deliberation, I decided I had to at least try the program for a semester before I could commit to the full two years/potentially pursuing a career in game development. I still have some things to mull over once I have room to breathe and process, but over the course of the semester – and particularly in TGP I and LD I – I have begun to see that this is truly something I can dedicate myself to long-term if I decide it is something I want to keep pursuing. Much to think about!