INTRODUCTION

Welcome to our development journey for Game Projects at DAE!

For this course, we’ve been tasked with creating a "Couch PvP or Co-op game," and we couldn’t be more excited to introduce Penguin Party — a really chaotic and fun multiplayer game!

Our team is made up of six students: three developers (Thalia, Xander, and Aaron) and three artists (Lila, Laris, and Gero). We’re all bringing our skills and creativity together to create a game that’s reaaaaally chaotic and most importantly FUN.

Penguin Party is all about bringing people together for some seriously chaotic gameplay. Smash each other with fish, knock someone off, or do whatever feels right—it's all about the fun! Picture colorful, lively environments, goofy, chunky penguins, and loads of chaos. We’re super excited to create something that’s all about having a great time together!

ART

Style

Our artist have narrowed the oceans of art styles and possibilities down to an ice floe, and are determined to carve out a coherent and tasteful Art Bible. First and foremost, we want to achieve an inviting, warm and playful color palette that contrasts with the otherwise cold and rugged environment. This will come together in a stylized look and feel. There should be a disparity between the rounded, goofy penguin characters and the sharper, more geometric terrain. The way the players interact with the map, items and each other should deliver a cartoonishly chaotic and fun experience. In terms of materials, considering among other things time limitations, we decided on keeping our looks simple by letting Base Color maps do the heavy lifting. Roughness/Smoothness will play a simple, but not unimportant role. We're planning on using flat Roughness values between objects to help with material readability. Transparency and emissive maps might be used where they make sense: the former on ice or water and the latter on Real-Time Effects.

Process

It is really important to us artists that we are working from a level playing field. One way we aim to achieve this is by making sure we are using the same software, enabling us to easily work together, and jump in to take some work off each other's hands when needed. After delving into each other's programs missing from our toolbelts, we decided on using Blender as our main modeling package. We will use Blender for most of our 3D work from Modeling to Animating. Substance Painter and Photoshop will be used to create materials for our models. This pipeline should allow us to carry out a non-destructive workflow, which we see as important in an project where lots of small tweaks are bound to be requested and fulfilled.

Engine

This brings us to the question of which engine to use. After exploring existing shaders as a starting point, we found that Unity offers a wider variety than Unreal Engine and aligns better with our art style. Using a pre-existing shaders allows us to save development time and focus on refining it to match our artistic vision. Unity's built-in Asset Store allows for quick experimentation with and editing of shaders. Throughout testing and prototyping we've thus grown a natural preference for working with Unity. In trying concepts, Unity's speed and lower learning curve have made it a strong choice for Artists.

Development

Controller Movement

Set up Unity’s Input System to detect and map controllers. Implemented movement using Vector2 input from the joystick and applied it to the player’s Rigidbody. Added smooth movement to ensure responsive controls.

Player Manager

Created a Player Manager to track connected controllers. Allowed new players to join by pressing a button on an unassigned controller. Ensured each player gets assigned a unique controller index for proper input handling. Struggles & Challenges Handling Multiple Controllers: Unity's Input System is powerful but a bit tricky when dynamically assigning controllers to new players. I had to make sure each player was assigned correctly and didn’t overlap. Desync Issues: At times, some controllers weren’t recognized properly when joining mid-game. I had to debug the Input System events and make sure the system properly assigned the correct device. Movement Feel: Initially, movement felt too sensitive or laggy, so I had to fine-tune values like dead zones and acceleration for smoother control.

How does the tilting platform feel? Does it move with waves and/or player movement?

I have been testing a bunch of different implementations to try and make this mechanic feel nice. Finally, I got to a version that feels and looks pretty good, though the values will definitely see some more tweaking in the near future. We have decided adding both player based and wave based tilting is the best choice for our game, as this will lead to a more fast-paced and chaotic gaming experience.

Can we make the breaking ice platform realistic?

Artists and developers teamed up for this question, after some research and testing, we decided that this approuch might require too much time for what it's worth. We opted to use a more simple approach.

Slippery platform

Initially, I attempted to create a slippery surface through code in Unity, but it didn’t work as expected, so I decided to discard that approach. Instead, I implemented a Physic Material, which successfully achieved the desired slippery effect.

Next steps...

• Add a character selection screen so players can choose their avatar before spawning in.
• Implement the breaking platform.
• Implement a more realistic slipperiness.
• ...