Dodge the Fog was a project funded by Scottish youth charities YouthLink Scotland & DataKirk wherein early career developers were contracted out to work with youth groups to bring their dream games to life. Over the course of 10 weeks, our team worked with a group of young people to help bring their idea to life.
The idea our youth group brought to us was Dodge the Fog, an endless runner aimed at discouraging young people from vaping. Based in Edinburgh, the youth group pitched us a game set in Edinburgh that involved classic endless runner mechanics combined with parkour, Edinburgh. Serving a dual purpose on the team, it was my responsibility to bring their creative ideas to life while also building out the game's UI features using Unity & C#.
Team Size: 5
Role: Mechanics Designer & UI Programmer
Project Length: Mechanics Designer & UI Programmer
Platform: Android Phones
Responsibilities: 10 weeks total: 8 weeks of development time, 16 hours per week
● Gameplay Design & Prototyping ● UI & Leaderboard Programming
● Client Communication ● Design Documentation
● Support gameplay scripting
Prototyping
I began the design process by adapting the youth group's parkour ideas into solidified gameplay mechanics. I created a rough prototype in Unity to demonstrate the core mechanics such as sliding, wall running, and rail grinding. I then passed the prototype off to the team's main programmer.
Design Documentation
Once the game mechanics were confirmed, I went about documenting them so that the whole team could quickly grasp the gameplay elements. Given the brief amount of time we had for development, I had to ensure that the documentation was clear & concise while not devoting too much development time towards its creation. I focused on making simple images for each mechanic that could be interpreted at a glance. This was beneficial in that it allowed me to keep the core design documentation to two pages so that it was easily digestible by the whole team.
gameplay Trailer
Screenshots
