Les deux petits cochons
🧩 Pitch
One of the three little pigs has been kidnapped by the Big Bad Wolf. His two companions use catapults to drive the beast from the houses it occupies.
📋 Specificities
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10-week competition (02/25 to 04/25)
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Action-adventure, cooperative, local
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Unreal Engine
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Worktime : 15-20h/week (8 teammates)
🎮 Core loop
Collect bricks while dodging scraps, use them in the catapult to hit your target.
Game design
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This project was developed based on a mandate that met strict specifications.
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The game not only had to be multiplayer and accessible to all, but also had to incorporate a physical aspect central to gameplay (in this case, wind) and a three-step chain reaction that could be triggered by the player (in this case, a catapult destroying a pillar lowering a bridge).
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The main challenge was to make the experience quickly understandable, as it was being evaluated by a jury that was not necessarily made up of gamers and during a 10-minute session..
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As the production time was very limited, a very strict schedule was drawn up to define milestones of the project.
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Our main inspirations were It Takes Two and Overcooked. We conducted comparative studies with our prototype to identify the key points of these gaming experiences and enhance our concept.
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This game consists of two alternating phases: corridor and arena. This allows to set the pace and its difficulty, but also gives players time to learn.
Focus on features
Camera
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The camera is mobile but with certain limitations to avoid revealing what is going on behind the scenes. This allows the artists to focus their work on the essentials.
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The angle of inclination was determined in order to magnify level art and clarify the movement of elements on the screen for players.
Dash
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This action combine dodging, running and jumping. Three actions in one to simplify learning and playing.
Bricks' spawn balancing
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Bricks' spawn is determined by the placement of the catapult. As players must accumulate bricks in the catapult, bricks appear more often as far away from the catapult as possible to force players to use their other mechanics (move around, and dash).
Chain reaction's impact on gameplay
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To enhance the chain reaction's impact on gameplay, it is linked to the players' progress. Once achieved, they can go further.
A retelling of a folk tale
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This allowed us to easily immerse the player in the universe and quickly introduce them to the objective.
Level design
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As the game evaluation session was only supposed to last ten minutes, the main challenge was to effectively teach players all the game mechanics.
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The corridor phases are therefore designed to break down the entire gameplay into several stages.
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Numerous iterations were produced and tested to assess the quality of learning as well as the duration of each level.
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In addition, as the game had to be accessible to everyone, the game aids were given with images rather than text.
Quality analysis
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The game was tested weekly, several times a week, in order to gather as much information as possible about its quality.
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Protocols were established in advance to define the test objectives.