Bruce the shark is hungry for lunch! Use the water in a flooding submarine to eat the sailors before they drown in this exciting puzzle game.

Details
  • Theme: Unconventional Ocean Survival
  • Team Size: 4 members
  • Engine: Unity
  • Development Time: 48 Hours
  • Game Mode: Single-player mission
Responsibilities
  • Concept & documentation
  • Game Design (level & controls)
  • Systems Design (mechanics)
  • Programming (gameplay)
Overview

Sharkpedo is a puzzle solving game with the theme of “unconventional ocean survival”. It was made in Unity during a 48-hour game jam with a team of four. You play as Bruce the shark who has broken into a submarine to get some lunch. You must navigate the submarine to eat the sailors before the spreading water drowns them. Bruce won't eat drowned sailors because he only likes the freshest of snacks!

My Role

I was the lead designer and created the levels, water AI, and object interactions. I also worked on the programming side writing the torpedo scripting, collision detection, and some of the movement. Our design goal was to make a puzzle game where players were racing against and dependent upon the water. We accomplished this by letting you move twice as fast in water encouraging you to flood the levels, but we also let the sailors drown which forces you to plan ahead. I designed several levels where it was really easy to let the water get out of control, which highlights just how fun and crazy this game can get.

I learned the value of prioritization with Sharkpedo. I started working on the level design too early in development. Movement was not added into the game until day two. This lead to the ‘lunge’ mechanic being cut due to time, and the levels I had previously made were no longer possible to complete with the existing mechanics. This caused a lot of rework that I could have avoided if I focused on getting core mechanics running before I dove into my level design.



  • The Team:
    • Design & programming - Kevin Langendoen
    • Art & programming - Jessie Davis
    • Production & design - John Ha
    • Progamming - Cat Morgan
Levels get much more complex as you play. This level introduces four different water sources.
This is level 2, where we introduce how torpedoes greatly accelerate the flooding of the room. You can see here how most of the level is already water.
My initial paper design. Here i'm tracking water flow to make sure a level is solvable. In the top right you can see the map that eventually became level 4.
Level 4 paper design.
Victory!