Disassembly Line is a 2D top-down twin-stick shooter roguelike set in a dystopian future. You play as a disposable convict laborer, sent into a malfunctioning robot factory to destroy as many cybernetic creatures as possible. The first game jam I ever worked on!
Genre: Roguelike Shooter
Role: Game Designer, Narrative Designer, 2D Art Assistant, Playtester
Team Size: 3 people
Platform: PC (Itch)
Tools: Godot, Google Docs, Github
My Contributions:
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Designed the core gameplay mechanics to fit with the game jam theme of "Exchange".
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Designed individual enemy attack patterns and a unique "pancake" system to randomize encounters.
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Designed item and weapon abilities, including the randomized "tradeoff" system.
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Wrote game story, synopsis and game over text.
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Documented gameplay systems for teammates to reference.
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Assisted with 2D art and playtesting
The "Pancake" System
Problem:
We needed to design enough content to keep players engaged and keep each run feeling fresh, but with a two week deadline and no dedicated artists on our team, we didn't have enough time or manpower to create a lot of distinct enemies with unique movesets.
Solution:
Lessons:
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I designed a "pancake" system, where each boss would be made up of three body parts (legs, arms, head) randomly selected from an item pool. The legs would determine the boss's movement, while the arms and head would provide its two attacks. This would allow the game to mix-and-match parts and create unique bosses with minimal effort.
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This mechanic also allowed us to implement a new item system, where players could swap out one body part with another before the fight. This allowed players to change the difficulty of encounters and provided a layer of custom interaction.
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This system allowed us to streamline our art assets and limited the number of animations we had to create, but also required us to design each body part so it could stack on top of the other.
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Designing attacks and abilities so they wouldn't contradict each other was challenging, but successfully increased the depth of the game's content and improved player experience.
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Some body part combinations were inherently easier or more challenging than others, but the part swapping mechanic allowed players to mitigate those issues and added a unique level of strategy.
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Players greatly enjoyed the combat and found the pancake system interesting and fun to strategize around.
Some of my initial designs for robot body parts.
A few of the possible robot combinations.
The Exchange Mechanic
Problem:
In addition to the regular gameplay loop, I needed to design some sort of mechanic related to the Game Jam's theme of "exchange".
Solution:
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I designed a buff/debuff item system that would allow players to modify future enemy encounters. They could either make an upcoming boss easier in exchange for lingering difficulty spikes, or make the boss harder in exchange for lingering benefits. Either way, players would have to make an active choice.
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Each individual buff/debuff item would be randomly generated by selecting a buff option and a debuff option from a pool of choices. Like with the pancake system, this degree of randomness greatly increased the amount of in-game content without requiring much work.
Lessons:
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On the whole, the mechanic was a success, and players greatly enjoyed strategizing around the tradeoffs. However, some debuffs or buffs were often too subtle to have a visible effect on gameplay, and could have had their values tweaked.
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While we had time to add and polish the mechanic, some specific buffs and debuffs had to be cut for time due to their difficulty to implement.
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While I designed a "tier" system that would scale the numerical values of each buff and debuff as the player progressed further through the game, it ultimately wasn't necessary and could have been cut to save time.
My Buff/Debuff effect designs.