Escape From Planet Doom

Escape from Planet Doom (flixel)

Team

Yori Kvitchko (Team Lead, Designer, Gameplay Programming)

Dan Gopstein (Designer, Writer, Logic Programmer, Sound Director)

Tarek El-Gaaly (Art Director, AI Programming)

Ming Jin (Gameplay Programming)

Original Prototype

external link: PrototypeFour.swf

Build Instructions

Production week 1 (3/5/10)

efpd_internal_1.png efpd_external_1.png

In the first week we placed heavy focus on many cool features which we would eventually remove based on concerns of project complexity and aesthetic conciseness. Among the features we decided to leave behind were positionally-relevant ship damage and openly navigable space arenas. We had hoped that damages incurred in space-view play would be passed on to the crew of the ship if they were located in a region of the craft which had been injured. The design of external play was also much larger-scale than what we would eventually decide to settle on. The majority of graphics in this revision were temporary placeholder images used to facilitate the testing of gameplay.

codebase external link: PlanetDoom_1.zip

swf external link: PlanetDoom_1.swf

Production week 4 (3/25/10)

efpd_internal_4.png efpd_external_4.png efpd_external2_4.png

By week 4 we had settled almost all questions of top-level conceptual design, however many ambiguities remained hidden in the specifics of implementation. External game-play was already happening in a sandbox style. We worked mainly on mechanical concerns like the layout and feel of controls, rather than content specification such as boss design. By this time we had a strong inclination towards the direction of our cartoony art style, however we were still plagued by issues of visual scale inconsistency and chromatic mayhem.

codebase external link: PlanetDoom_4.zip

swf external link: PlanetDoom_4.swf

Production week 5 (4/1/10)

efpd_menu_5.png efpd_internal_5.png efpd_external_5.png efpd_external2_5.png

Week 5 consisted primarily of revisiting the visual style and attempting to resolve consistency issues. The design of each external level in the game was finalized and much of the dialog was written. Week 5 also included the implementation of the first three external levels.

codebase external link: PlanetDoom_5.zip

swf external link: PlanetDoom_5.swf

Production week 7 (4/15/10)

efpd_menu_7.png efpd_internal_7.png efpd_internal2_7.png efpd_external_7.png efpd_external2_7.png

Weeks 6 and 7 saw the evolution of our final decided upon art style as well as a major visual revamp of the internal gameplay. Although the rules remained the same the interface changed from an RTS style top down to a view reminiscent of a widescreen movie. The game was playable and nearly complete at this point with only a few things remaining, leaving us to spend more time balancing the level progression and play test extensively.

codebase external link: PlanetDoom_7.zip

swf external link: PlanetDoom_7.swf

Final Game (4/28/10)

efpd_menu.png efpd_internal.png efpd_internal2.png efpd_external.png efpd_external2.png

The final weeks saw extensive polish and testing. Specific focus was on testing with players who had never played or seen the game before.

codebase external link: PlanetDoom.zip

swf external link: PlanetDoom.swf

Postmortem (4/30/10)

PostMortem external link: PlanetDoomPostMortem.pdf