Overview

Disease Me is a 3D side-scrolling co-op puzzle platformer developed during the Online Game Design course at university, winner of the NGD Contest 2020.

The game's narrative explores depression and the struggle to overcome past traumas. One player controls a boy; the other plays as Hoop, a spirit representing his will to live. The two characters have asymmetric, complementary abilities. This asymmetry was designed to enforce constant communication between players, reinforcing the narrative of dependency and mutual support in overcoming depression.

Some of my contributions:

• Crafted the narrative design for a co-op campaign of 6 levels, including storyboarding and design documentation;

• Conducted target analysis on age, gender and player type based on Bartle's taxonomy to define the game's audience;

• Gameplay scripting: enemies' AI via FSM, camera system, co-op networking, environment puzzles, data saving;

• Designed environment puzzles for the co-op campaign;

• Estimated server workload and user distribution based on expected concurrent players and data usage;

• Art directed the CG artist on character and environment 3D asset creation and animation;

• Edited the concept trailer and the gameplay trailer.

Concept Trailer

Gameplay Video

Links

Full Game Design Document

Technical Design Document

Gallery