Roo's Rescue
Roo's Rescue is a 3D side-scrolling platform where you play the role of Mama Roo, a kangaroo is on a mission to take back fruit stolen from her village by a pack of hungry dingoes. Incidentally, her baby -- Baby Roo -- was taken along with the fruit.
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This project was completed in a month-long game jam cycle by Team Helios.
Game Design - Level Design
The game's levels would be similar to Super Mario style games with a simple 2D layout. The player's objectives would be to collect the fruit in the level while avoiding enemies, and reaching the end of the level.
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Along the way, the player will avoid traps and use double-jump, as well as a teleporting ability, to switch between the background and foreground layers.
Blockout
The level layout of Roo's Rescue was designed by myself and our other Game Designer, who drew out the papermap version.
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I took the papermap version and build it directly in the Unreal engine for quick demoing.
When designing the level, we took into consideration some key aspects of the gameplay:
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Empowerment
Given that the player was taking on the role of a mama kangaroo who is looking for her baby, we wanted this to be mimicked in the gameplay. Thus, double jump was a default ability, as opposed to a power-up that the player could earn through collecting fruit.
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Reward player for exploration and experimentation
Naturally, this was a challenge to implement in a 2D side-scroller as the playable landscape was limited in terms of where the player can explore. However, there was a conscious decision to minimize guidance of the player regarding interactable items within the game (i.e; which trees can be shaken for fruit) leading players to make these discoveries themselves.
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UI Design
Animation
For the main menu, our 2D Artist (Tania) created our game logo on multiple layers. I implemented the layers into Unreal and used the Widget animation maker to create an animation of the title screen.
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UI Title Art by Tania
Similarly, I implemented art made by Tania into the "Game-over" event. When the player completes the game, the widget animations will play, with multiple stars displaying depending on how many fruit the player collected.
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HUD and End Level UI Art by Tania
Finished main screen menu with full UI art.
Splash art by Jerry Mendheim
