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BEE THE INFILTRATOR (Prototype)
In order to solve your hive's economic crisis, you are sent to an enemy hive to steal THE GREATEST NECTAR! Put on your fancy tiny fedora, sharpen your stinger and bee-come... the infiltrator!
Genre - 2D Action, Dungeon Crawler
Platform - PC
Production Duration - 8 weeks
Team Size - 5 people
Role - Lead Game Designer/ Artist
Battle through the hive!
Use your a-bee-lities to fight against your foes!
Use your abilities to fight off enemies
Players can are given 3 forms abilities for combat, a regular spin attack, a honey shot that reduces the enemy speed, and the honey sword, a temporary blade that deals extra damage.
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Spin attack
Honey Sword
Honey Shot
Abilities like the Honey Shot and Honey Shot uses a rechargeable Shot to use, it acts similar to a mana bar of sorts and players need to let it recharge before they can use their abilities.
Explore the absurd world of the Hive
Fly through the hive and encounter strange rooms and situations!
Players will explore unpredictable rooms with their own setting and situation to create an unpredictable and chaotic vibe to the game. Anticipating what lies ahead and the comedic style of the situation of each room is one of the pillars this game is aiming for.
Talk your way through...
Learn more and talk your way through as an infiltrator.
Players can talk to non-hostile bees to learn new information on the lore or certain pathways, or to obtain items that would help them progress through the level. Some enemies may become hostile if the player chooses the wrong dialogue option.
About the production
IDEATION PHASE
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During ideation, we decided to put to a vote on the type of game to be made. We brainstormed 3 game ideas and decided on the bee game I proposed. This was due to the clear description idea how the game would be played and the how realistic it was to be done as a game project.
pRODUCTION PHASE
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As I was the only game designer in this cross disciplinary project, I was in charge of building the prototype in the Unity game engine, along with the art. Since I only had 8 weeks to make to make it, I had to be smart with how I work around it.
In regards to the building of the prototype, the most difficult problem would be forming multiple different rooms. I focused on a basic room with enemies, each enemy AI had a Enemy script, with variables that can change it's stats and attack pattern easily. Once a room is done, I grouped them together and duplicated each room from there, changing slight details in each room. Thus, it allowed me to quickly generate rooms and create differences from there.
In terms of art, I am not much of an artist, so I decided to give a vector art style as it was much easier to do quickly. To get a seamless animation, I sepeated the body parts and aniamated them from Unity from there. Since the enemies are also bees, I simply use the same animation while replacing the sprite for each body part and changing the speed to create a better distinction.
Overall, the major problem would be the time it would take on my own. Fortunately, once I got to work, I planned out a work quota for the day to meet (based on the progress of my other courses' project during that week). Sometimes, I would adjust it further if it was finished further than expected. Once I had done so, time barely became the problem I thought it would be and managed to finish my planned work a week early, which I used to polish the prototype.
post mortem
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Before production, I thought I was going to have a really bad time as I was the sole person working on it. However, while it was nerve-wreaking, the project turned out much better than I expected and it became a great boost in my confidence as a Game Designer.
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However, the team itself soon had a serious problem over a dispute involving another member not doing their amount of work, and lack of honest communication despite being the lead of that part of the team.
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Once I saw the red flags, I opted to have the involved parties to stop the group meeting and had someone tell their side of the story. Due to the group composition requirements, kicking out a member would cause the group to disband and must join another group. However, with some advice of a lecturer, I decided it would be best for the group to disband, as I believe it was not worth maintaining the group when the involved parties refuse to compromise or reconcile. Hence, this prototype is what remains of the cross disciplinary project.
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While the prototype went well, the group itself feel apart due to bad communication. While I was not involved in the matter, it was still a vital lesson to me on how important communication and honesty is in a team project, which I kept in mind for future projects going forward.
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