Development Walk Through 5

For my last post of this development walk through, I will take you through the work I did for the UI for Unlocked. The picture below shows the flow through the menu system of the game. So as you can see you start the game in the menu, and you have four choices as to where you can go. Each button goes to a separate menu, and then those menus will branch out to many other different things. Everything is properly labeled to help people to not get lost in the flowchart. Unlocked didn't really need mainly different buttons in the mainly. All you need is an option to load a game or start a new game. Settings were not that important but still there is a need for some settings. Those settings included volume, sound effects, and video settings like brightness. It also was important to let the player customize the controls to how they liked, because every person like to do things different ways. The menus are simple, but Unlocked is not a complex game.

Another important part of UI is the physical part. This includes gamepads, VR, and keyboard and mouse. For Unlocked, the game is being made for PC only, As you can see below, I labeled each Key and described what that key did. I made the controls based on what the default controls are for PC. W,A,S,D allow the player to move around. The only other key that was needed was the left mouse click, and this allows the player to pick up and interact with objects in the game world. Again these controls are very simple, and that is perfect for Unlocked.

Key	Action
W	Move forward
A	Move left
S	Move backward
D	Move right
Left mouse click	Select object

You may be asking, where is the HUD elements? Well for Unlocked there is no HUD, This was done to make Unlocked as realistic and possible. In real life you don't have a crosshair in front of you or an ammo count. This game is a simulator and a HUD didn't make sense for the game.

So that is all of the UI for Unlocked, and also the end to this development series. I hope that you learned something from my work. It's nice to let people into your head and describe something you have worked on. As I complete my degree for game design and development, I hope to make more blogs like this.

Development Walk Through 4

I had mentioned in the last post that I would talk about rules, goals and objectives, and gameplay mechanics for Unlocked. That is just what I am going to do. So to start lets talk about the rules to Unlocked. So the player starts in the first room and there goal is to find a key. To acquire the key the player must step near it. Once they have the key they are then able to unlock the first door. They do that by going near the lock and clicking on it. There is no other way to open the door, not even cheating will help you. The second room is very similar, except this time you have multiple key cards that you can acquire. The player must find the right colored key card to open the door. If they have the wrong colored key card they can't open the door. The player acquires the key card the same way as the key in the first room. So, the player has the right key card and they walk up to the lock and same as before they click on the lock and the doors opens. Things need to be done in the right order for you to be able to progress. For the last room, the player must find the codes for the lock. These codes are hidden so the player must look for them. There is no order that you must find the codes in. So once the player knows the whole code they are able to click on the number pad. The player must click the right buttons in the right order to open the door. Until that is achieved the door will not open. There aren't many ways you can cheat in Unlocked, but it's important to know that there are rules to the game. The game is simple if you unlock all of the doors you win, if you fail to unlock the doors you lose. So for goals and objectives, I explained them just above. You move from room 1, 2, and 3 unlocking the different locks. No other path can be taken, it is the same every time. Lastly, lets talk about mechanics. So as you should know now you can walk around in the game. It's basic, you move right, left, forward, and backward. You do this at the normal walking speed. There's no jumping or flying, or anything that a normal human being can't do. The player is also able to click on objects which is one of the most important actions in the game. They have to be able to click on every lock to unlock the doors. That is basically all of the mechanics to Unlocked. For my last post, I will talk about the user interface of Unlocked, physical and virtual. I will post pictures to help you visualize my work.