Summary

Element Kingdom: Prologue is a 10 week project I worked on to display my talents within the field of 2D level design and C# scripting.

The game is an 2D side scrolling RPG basis which features a simple tutorial for melee combat, 2 magic spells (mana dash & energy ball) and a leveling up system where you gain stat points to place in either strenth, agility, magic, endurance or luck each with their own perks when it comes to fighting or exploring.

All current graphical sprite assets were made by me and a friend and all scripts and level design were made by myself.

All particle effects are from the unity package FX Quest from Gold Experience Team.

There are still a few placeholder sprites that are NOT mine in the demo version of the game and will be removed later on in development.

Specifications

• Created using Unity.
• Majority of textures made in Photoshop.
• Singleplayer experience.
• RPG basis (planned to be further developed over time).
• Scripting and 2D level design focused.
• All features, functionality and events are self-scripted in C#.
• Features a fully functional level up system.
• Features cool melee and magic combat.
• Storyboard written on the side. (not yet fully implemented)
• Created during my time at The Game Assembly.

Designing Gameplay

The game needed to have the right feel as old side scrollers so I took a bit of gameplay inspiration from the online game Maple Story and the mobile game Swordigo.

After successfully developing a nice feel to melee combat I needed magic as well to add a bit of flexibility in the mix. Then it showed that magic would be very overpowered and that's what sparked my fire to create a fully functional level up system with stat points where the player could choose for him/herself what kind of build the main player would have towards the end.

It was a bit of a challenge during the start but thanks to the help of mathematics I made it feel good enough and provided unique flow each time someone played.

2D Level Design

At first I had hoped to make something along the design on 2.5D level design like they have in another online title Elsword but due to the timeframe I found this to be quite hard to achieve. For simplicities sake and to make an acceptable demo before deadline I went with 2D instead.

I took much inspiration for other 2D games when it came to hiding secrets in a 2D environment and finding a good placement for enemies and paths one can take to avoid enemies if one so wishes to do so.

I'll admit I found 2D level design to be a bit more challenging in comparison to 3D level design since I was limited to designing on a flat plane when it came to building interesting areas and player paths.