TROJAN

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About the Game:

Manoeuvring a small droid through a highly secured system overtaken by a hostile entity, players must extract secret files. After reaching the Nexus and solving their objective, they have to escape while avoiding the Watchers‘ close surveillance. Otherwise, they risk alerting the Sentinels to attack. To avoid obstacles such as laser traps and monitoring, they can hitch a ride on free-roaming data packets, disable Watchers or manipulate their screening criteria.
Creative players can use the map editor to develop their own levels and share them with others.

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My tasks:

Menu development:

The inclusion of a map editor meant that the main menu had to be expanded beyond the usual ‚Play‘, ‚Settings‘, ‚Credits‘ and ‚Quit‘ options, to incorporate a community section showing the maps created by others, as well as a custom map menu for creating and editing personal maps.
Working closely with the game design department, initial designs were iterated, from the layout of the various menus to the buttons and icons.

UI implementation:
Once the menus and the flow from one to the other were outlined, the setup followed. As the map editor was developed by our lead programmer, he implemented a matching menu as he completed it.

2D-graphics:
During the menu development, the task of developing the necessary 2D assets for the cursor, buttons, map editor icons and the protagonist’s facial expressions was also iterated. In short feedback loops, the graphical elements were iterated to reflect the „TRON legacy“ and 80s science fiction style the team had agreed on.

Logos:
Since the team „KPI Productions“ needed a logo as much as the game itself, one that would fit the chosen visual theme, three rounds of design and voting were used to narrow down and refine the initial concepts until the final graphics were chosen.

Sound implementation:
After setting up a sound library, the next step was to manage the recall, playback and cancellation. As features and assets were polished, the audio was implemented.

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Changed plans:

UI:
As the project neared completion, the team discovered a UI creation plugin that could display a previously abandoned style. Since this style suited the polished look of the final product much better than the current design, it was implemented and replaced the previous UI.

Achievements:
Players should be able to unlock various achievements during their playthrough. Some should be related to play time, others to initial experiences (completing level one, dying, being spotted, etc.), as well as specific numbers such as replaying a level, publishing custom maps, and placing certain amounts of an element during level creation.

Homebase:
Instead of a simple inactive animation of the protagonist, an empty home base should greet players when they first start the game. As the game progresses, items and decorations could be collected or unlocked to fill the base. Each new element would give the inactive protagonist a chance to interact and reward players with a funny or cute animation.

Story:
As a rough idea, the droid would be tasked with cleaning an infiltrated system. To show this properly, the addition of cutscenes or contextual elements was planned. The corruption of the system was to be visualized by optical changes once a level had been cleared, such as the formerly hostile security system changing color or giving positive feedback to the protagonist.

Marketing:
After publishing the Game on Steam, a fitting advertisement strategy was outlined. From bought ad-space on various social media platforms, to working with influencers and youtubers, the plans spanned over a few months.