Stargaze
2.5D Platformer and Matching Game
Play as Apollo's assistant to help him fix the constellations that Apollo broke. Will you be able to finish the task at hand before nightfall or will you let the world be enveloped in darkness?
PROJECT DETAILS
Challenge: Create a game to teach kids about constellations
​
Role: Programmer, Concept Artist, 3D Modeler
​
Duration: Jan. 2017 - Jun. 2017
TOOLS
Pen & Paper
Illustrator
Photoshop
Unreal Engine 4
Maya
​
Overview
This game is a 2.5D platformer developed in Unreal Engine 4. The player will fly the character through the sky from a side, third person view. 2.5D means the character and interactive objects will appear 3 dimensional, but the backgrounds and effects will be 2 dimensional. The purpose of this game is to teach children about the constellations and their names.
Project design
The Greek god Apollo has messed up the stars in the sky. As the sun sets and the evening approaches, Apollo orders his assistant, Lathos, to fix his mistakes. Lathos needs to gather stars and rebuild the constellations before the sun completely sets, and the sky is dark. The player will control Lathos in his mission.
​
The star-collecting gameplay will be 2.5D from a side view. The player will use WASD or the arrows to move the character as he flies in one direction. The more stars the player collects, the heavier Lathos will be and the slower and closer the ground he gets. The constellation-building aspect of the game, which rids Lathos of stars and gives him a boost from becoming lighter, utilizes the Leap Motion Controller to allow the player to rotate a 3D cluster of stars until they match a constellation's orientation.
The Leap Motion Controller is a great addition to our project because the player does not need to move away from the computer to use a different device like a Kinect. The Leap Motion Controller provides detailed and accurate hand and finer gestures to make this learning experience more impactful. It also integrates well into our story, as Lathos tries to use his powers to resolve Apollo's mistakes.
Concept Art
We created 24 of the representations of the constellations, but we didn't have enough time to create levels for each of them. We decided to use bright colors because our main audience would be children.
models
Milestone 1
For the first milestone, we completed a basic, playable level where the player (currently the example model from Unreal's starter packs) can collect stars. The models and animations that we completed previously are now imported into the level.
Level overview.
Star model created and implemented.
Lathos and chariot model created and implemented.
Milestone 2
For the second milestone, we restricted the player's movement to only the right direction and adjusted the level design accordingly. The first two images illustrate the integration of the models and animations onto one of our computers. The images also show the ability to rotate a 3D cluster of stars. Once the stars are aligned (perspective will be changed so that it is more obvious), the alignment is detected. The bottom two images illustrate the the 2D cloud platforms and the star collection counter integrated on another computer. These will be integrated into the same working copy for the next milestone.
Incorrect alignment of stars.
Correct alignment of stars.
Implementation of star collecting and cloud platforms.
Milestone 3
For the third milestone, we integrated all our models and animations into the star-collecting level. We also completed the final level design for the game as well. At the end of the star-collecting portion of the game, the player is now transported to the constellation-building level. In this level, we have updated the aesthetic of the previous iteration of the star alignment. Once the player has aligned the the constellation, the player can check their work by pressing the space bar. If it is correct, the star cluster will disappear and the name of the constellation will appear, along with its representation.
Player collecting stars through the level.
Cluster of stars are not aligned.
Portal is located at the end of each star collecting level.
The stars are now aligned.
Representation and the name of the constellation shows up when player aligns the stars.
Milestone 4
For the fourth milestone, we added nine more constellation-building levels and nine more star-collecting levels. The levels play in the proper sequence from the first level to the final constellation-building level. We fixed the camera view to be orthographic instead of perspective so that the constellations are now able to perfectly line up with the images as intended. To help the player out, I implemented the two sizes of stars to indicate the the brightest stars in the constellation from the regular stars. We also added the new portals and programmed them to rotate.
Orthographic camera angle for the constellation-building levels.
Create more visual interest and animation to the portal.
Milestone 5
For the final milestone, we added a title menu to the game and music to each level. We also added a sound effect and fade effect when the player completes a constellation, and screens for when the player died or didn't have enough stars. We updated the HUD to be more clear with instructions for the player, and added the constellation to the sky in the background for each level after the constellation has been built.
