DECAYING SOFWARE

Who are we?

At The Game Assembly, we collaboratively create numerous games in groups. In our initial year, we have the opportunity to develop five distinct games, each time with a new group of people.

However, upon entering our second year, we are assigned to work with a single group for the entire year, providing us with a true studio experience.

In my case, this led me to become a member of Decaying Software.

Members

Level design: Myself, Laura, and Mohamed

Graphic design: Olivia, Emil, Sofia, Malin, and Josef

Programers: Lukas, Mathias, George, Patrik, and Loke

The Games we made

Alternate

Made in 8 weeks, fulltime
Fully made in our own engine (ISTE)
3D puzzle game inspired by Portal
Play it here

Decompression

Made in 16 weeks, half time
Fully developed in our own engine (ISTE)
3D action shooter inspired by Ultrakill
Play it here

Spite: Infected Grounds

Made in 14 weeks, half time
Made in a combination with Unity and our own engine (ISTE)
Top-down adventure game inspired by Diablo
Play it here

ALTERNATE

Immerse yourself in a captivating puzzle-solving experience. Step into an apocalyptic future, where a company called Alternate has risen to humanity's rescue with their ingenious puzzle-solving robots. Take on the role of a newly awakened robot, venturing into Alternate's facility long after its demise. With the power of a unique switch-gun, the player solves puzzles buy swapping places with a variety of different boxes and navigates to unlock the hidden truths concealed within Alternate's enigmatic world. All while being guided by a charming yet eerie AI voice.

My contribution

During this project I mainly worked with:

Game design
- Play tested our switch gun mechanic in prototypes.
- Created sketches outlining ideas that aligned with our mechanics.
- Wrote and illustrated descriptions for the group, explaining how these ideas would function.
Level design
- Crafted prototypes in Unreal Engine for faster testing.
- Made 2D versions of puzzle ideas to quickly test concepts with the group.
- Blocked out an overarching layout of the entire structure to ensure the levels would appear logical in the world for the player.
Videos
- Edited some videos during our development for clarification to the group and for the teachers to see how far we were.
- Edited the trailer for the finished product
Communication
- Maintained updated versions of all the puzzles and game ideas on Miro to keep everyone informed.
- Helped with presentations for our sprint reviews for the teachers.

1/4

LESSONS LEARNED

Document everything - After every meeting we had we wrote down notes and posted them in our channels. I think this is a very good policy to have because so often all decisions we make in the meetings fade after some time if not addressed properly.

Try out stuff that might not work - We wanted an AI voice to narrate the player and I really wanted it to sound robotic. I couldn't find a good AI text-to-speech that did this for me so I decided to dive deeper into Audacity. Turned out it was very quick and easy to make a voice robotic.

Let diffrent players test out your puzzels early - Pepole play games and solve problems diffrently. Really wish we would have playtested our levels with a wider player base early to make our levels better designed.

DECOMPRESSION

Get ready for the intense and fast-paced action of Decompression, a retro-styled first-person shooter. Immerse yourself in an underwater facility, tasked with exterminating enemies and acquiring encrypted data.

Drawing inspiration from Ultrakill, this adrenaline-fueled adventure offers three unique weapon types for you to wield. Glide and dash through the facility, utilizing your agility to swiftly navigate deeper into the depths. Engage in relentless fights, showcasing your skills and reflexes.

Can you survive the depths and accomplish your mission? Prepare to dive into the action in Decompression.

My contribution

This was our second game developed together. I cant say I had played many games of this genere before. But diving in to Ultrakill was pretty cool and it was fun to work on this.

Level design
- We all helped each other a lot making these levels. I mostly focused on making sure all the levels felt different from one another.
- During the last week, I mostly spent on set dressing them to match the theme. Really liked the lightning in these levels. Which was all thanks to our very skilled programmer George who built it all from scratch.
Sound design
- Spent a lot of time searching for sounds on free platforms that could work in the game. Tried to make them feel retro and suitable for an underwater facility environment.
Video editing
- I enjoy working in Davici Resolve and wanted to make the trailer. The music was made from an outsource and turned out fantastic. I tried to match the beat with fast-pacing clips to try to hype up the viewer.

1/6

LESSONS LEARNED

Game juice is a crucial ingredient - it's what adds that extra kick to a game. It's like when you shoot a weapon and the screen shakes, animations pop up, and you hear powerful sounds. All of this combines to make actions feel super exciting. Looking back, I think we missed out on this aspect. I firmly believe that effective game juice can take a regular weapon and make players think it's incredible, even if it's not that great. That's where we should have aimed to be, especially in a game like this.

Designing combat can be quite challenging - While I wasn't the primary person responsible for this task, Mohamed excelled at balancing combat scenarios, making him the lead in this aspect. My role primarily involved playtesting and providing him with feedback based on my observations. However, I did share some responsibility in the balancing process.

A noteworthy lesson I learned, and one that I believe holds great importance, is that as developers working on the game, we become its experts. This insight has stuck with me: if we find something to be hard, it's likely that it's actually too difficult.

Emphasizing Repetition - My experience in group projects has revealed a common occurrence – we often bring up a point in a meeting, but it resurfaces weeks later with varied understandings among team members. In my view, a more effective approach involves repeating decisions within the group. This strategy fosters a clear understanding of our shared objectives and avoids assumptions about everyone being on the same page.

SPITE: INFECTED GROUNDS

Spite: Infected Grounds is a gripping dark top-down action-adventure game, drawing inspiration from the legendary Diablo 3.

Step into the boots of a valiant knight as you venture into an abandoned city ravaged by a mysterious and sinister disease. Unravel the chilling secrets behind the city's downfall while mastering new magical abilities and unleashing devastating axe swings. Face off against grotesque and horrifying monsters across four intense levels, culminating in a thrilling showdown against a formidable boss. Putting all the skills you have learned to the test.

Can you survive the infected city and uncover the truth?

My contribution

Our first project together was to create a Diablo 3 clone. All groups got two themes to work with. Ours were "Old Town" and "Catacombs".

Level design
- I'm very happy with my fellow level designers. I think we worked really well together from the get-go. Creating a world that felt like one. And not three different ones.
- We started with a lot of top-down maps to get a general idea of what the player's goal would be.
- By prototyping in Unreal, we could quickly try out the size of our levels.
Sound design
- Mostly because no one really wanted to work with sound. Spent most of my time searching for free-to-use sounds and tweaked them using Audacity when needed.
Gameplay
- This one was pretty straightforward. We mostly picked and choose mechanics from original Diablo or previously made projects early students had made.
- I mostly spent my time documenting how each and every ability would work so that everyone in the team could easily read up when needed.

1/6

LESSONS LEARNED

Ask for help - It's not uncommon for me to appear reserved and introverted, especially when collaborating with new individuals. This sometimes makes it difficult for me to ask for help, leading me to attempt to solve problems independently. Although learning through self-discovery is valuable, it often proves to be a slower process. In reality, people are usually more than willing to offer their assistance and share their knowledge. This project, in particular, taught me a valuable lesson in this regard.

Keep it simple - I think our game turned out really good and I believe one of the core reasons for that is that we keept a lot of design simple. When starting up a project its very easy to scope it to big so often the right way to go about it is to make it as small as possible and then cut 10 procent. Even though we kept our scope low we stil had to cut stuff out during develpoment wich just shows how easy it is to understimate the amount of work stuff needs.