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Ayumu
Ayumu tells the tale of a young child who climbs a mysterious mountain to have his wish granted.
Genre - 2D Side Scroller, Platformer, Adventure, Narrative
Platform - Windows PC
Game Engine - Unity
Production Duration - 12 weeks
Team Size - 4 people
Role - Quest Designer, Narrative Lead, Level Designer
Resolve a series of quests
Venture through the different parts of the mountain, each dealing with their own situation.
The quest synopsis of each area in the game
Every time a player enters a new area, they are encountered with a different situation that prevents them from proceeding. Players are required to resolve each quest in order to enter the next area.
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Embark on a Journey of Self Growth
Learn more about the character of Ayumu, and experience his growth through this adventure
As a narrative focused game, the dialogue, characters, and quests are designed to be a platform for the main character, Ayumu, to express his personality, his backstory and growth as the game progesses
Meet the Yokai Denizens
The Mountain is filled with creatures known as Yokai, whose personalities are just as strange as their exisitence
Gumo-Baba
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The spider tailor who lives near the base of the mountain. She is one of the two most famous tailors on the mountain. However, she is also known for her heated rivalry with another famous tailor, the silkworm, Ori-Kaiko.
Sujimaru
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Leader of a gang of boisterous Japanese macaque. He is known to be a hard-headed, noisy fool with a booming voice. He takes friendship (or bro-manship as he calls it) to high regard and loves to work out.
Tengu Guard
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One of the many tengus who guard the mountain's summit. While they normally present spiritual trials to travelers before they proceed, they are major bookworms with a sense of superiority to the less literary-inclined.
Other than Ayumu, the player will get to know interesting and eccentric characters that often banter with the main character and creating entertaining conversations and situations for the player to enjoy
About the production
IDEATION PHASE
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The team discussed on wanting to make a game that utilizes a Japanese aesthetic. However, we were unsure of what genre to work on. All we knew what we wanted to do was to make use of the expansive folklore of yokai.
In order to solve this, we checked out some of our senior's past works and we were recommended to work on a more narrative game. Thus, we came up of the idea of a narrative focused game with puzzle platforming elements. As for the narrative, we were inspired by Aesop fables, and decide to put a moral in the end of the story. As a result, we came up the idea of the main character climbing a wish granting mountain, only to grow to become a more humble person by the end of it
pRODUCTION PHASE
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While we knew the start and end of the narrative of the game, we had no concrete plans of the quests and the level design. As I was given the task of the narrative and the level/ quest design, I created a few rough drawings and diagrams during the first 2 weeks to demonstrate my design and the team understood what we were working with and start building up the level from there within Unity. Furthermore, camera work and cutscenes were improvised and implemented during production.
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The most difficult part was coming up with a satisfying questline in the final area, especially with the limited time we had during that milestone. Fortunately, after much discussion, we decided to cut down the level design on the final area, with the quest allowing players to return to the previous areas, where they get to see the results of their actions
post mortem
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As this was the first cross-disciplinary project, we had some trouble in communicating with the artists at first. We designers neglected the specifications for the art assets to be used in Unity, causing some errors in scaling or image positions. Fortunately, as we were all pretty active, we noticed these needed to rush or thoroughly check up on each others work. Regarding the project itself, there were many concepts that were left unused, such as multiple endings or a collectable mechanic. Such elements were sacrificed for production for the sake of the more crucial elements for the game concept, using our pre-established pillars to make our judgement
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Overall, it was an informative experience in cross disciplinary work, and allowed me to become more familiar Unity's functions, such as Cinemachine, and in overall communication within a team.
