Lim Guo Wei
Game Designer | Scripter
Dark Walker
is an First Person Shooter set in a dark fantasy world. It combines heart-pumping action, immersive environment and a narrative that follows the story of a crystal, once believed to have brought prosperity to the land becomes corrupted and causes the extinction of humankind.
The player as a wanderer who returned home to find his village destroyed. Armed with his trusty shotgun and crossbow, the wanderer traverse through the dangerous land corrupted by the crystal, seeking to destroy the evil once and for all.
Project Details
Team Size
6
Duration
6 months
Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Unity Engine,
Visual Studio
Scripting Language
C#
Roles and Responsibilities
UI/UX Designer
As a UI/UX designer, my responsibility involves creating the asset of all UI/UX element as well as programming them to make them functional in the game. This includes the game's HUD consisting of player health bar as well as various icons that are used as a representation for quest tracking. I am also responsible for the implementation and design of important user-interface such as pause menu and main menu.
Game Designer
As a game designer that focuses on the game's combat mechanics, I am primary responsible for designing and programming the game's weapon and combat mechanics and functionality as well as game balancing.
Game Design
During the production of this game, I have to keep in mind that the shooting mechanics in the game must be well-balanced and satisfying to the player. In the process of doing so, I have created many iterations of different type of shooting mechanics and perform numerous rapid-prototyping in order to find a perfect one.
Version 1:
The game was initially known as Station Zero, a sci-fi shooter. In this version, the player wields an energy weapon and a ballistic weapon. Each weapon inflict different type of damage that work against different type of enemies.
Version 2:
An inventory system was then added to the game together with the change of game theme. The two weapons that the player initially have been combined into one due to feedback we received from playtesters.
To further enhance gameplay, a randomised loot system are added to the game. A decision made to provide the randomization for multiple playthrough
Player inventory with placeholder
Loot found!
However, the addition was not well received. Playtesters felt that it makes the game unnecessarily complicated and it makes the game luck dependent. We also took note that the player doesn't feel empowering....
UI/UX Design
Version 3:
Returning to its root, the weapon system was eventually changed back to dual-wielding. I have also massively increased the weapon's fire rate, as we are pushing the game to a more fast-paced gameplay. The changed was well-received by playtesters and manages to make the player feel powerful.
To further enhance gameplay, I have implemented a maximum health upgrade as well as a weapon upgrade. This provides the player with a reason to explore the game map and a reward to them from doing so.
Health boost
Weapon Upgrade
Another design decision was to make the weapon change their appearance when upgraded. This is to give the player a sense of satisfaction of seeing their weapons become more awesome looking.
Before Upgrade
After Upgrade
Due to the nature of a first-person shooter game, the player's viewpoint is everything. Hence I have designed the UI element in the game to make sure that it does not obstruct the player's view while still able to show them important information such as quest progress, interaction prompt and their health.