END OF THE LINE
Set in a cyberpunk future, End of the Line is a time-loop game about a man trying to prevent the train he's riding on from exploding. Using only the knowledge he gains every time he dies, he must find a way to stop the explosion from happening once and for all.
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End of the Line won the Best Student Game award at the SEA Game Awards 2022.
The game can be found and downloaded at: https://ich0rr.itch.io/end-of-the-line
MY ROLE IN THE PROJECT
This game was made as my Final Year Project, and I worked as a designer under my team, Semicolon Studios.
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What I worked on:
- Designing the mechanics of the game.
- Created the level concepts and blockouts for most of the train carts.
- Designing some of the different puzzles the player interacts with.
- Wrote the majority of the dialogue in the game (via the Yarnspinner tool).
- Worked with the rest of the team to come up with the background narrative.
Design Pillars
The main design focuses for the project, including the desired thematic and visual experience, forms of fun and intended gameplay feel.
01
Time Loop
We wanted the game to center around a time loop, where the game world would reset after a certain amount of time. This would have the player strategise around the loop, progressively gathering knowledge and understanding what they can do within a single loop, continually building things up to be able to complete the game in one final loop.
02
Knowledge-based progression
As we wanted the game world to reset every time a time loop would complete, any progression the player would have made towards their final goal would have to be reset. From this, we wanted any persistent progression to only be tied to knowledge or clues the player had obtained in previous loops, in order to keep the rules of the time loop consistent. So technically every puzzle could be solved or quest could be completed within in the first loop, but the player needed the knowledge from multiple prior loops in order to be able to complete said puzzles and quests, which they can only obtain through building up information gained from looping multiple times.
Post Mortem
What did I take away from this game?
01
What worked?
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The time loop created an engaging core gameplay focus that encouraged players to strategise around it
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Player character dialogue worked as a way to subtly guide the players if they got lost
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The journal system allowed players to keep track of their progress and strategise how to move forward, and was easy enough to understand from first glance
02
What could have been improved?
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The Journal UI wasn't very clear, and a large amount of players missed it due to it only popping up when key information was gained​
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Some of the NPC dialogue wasn't clear, and somewhat ambiguous, which led to players mixing up the necessary items to complete the quests, and getting stuck as a result
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The quests the player had to complete were very similar in nature, which led to some overlap and confusion
03
What were the main takeaways?
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Important UI elements need to be always visible and easy to see, so that players don't miss it​
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It's key to have an engaging core loop, to keep players invested in the game and immersed in it, which we managed to achieve by having all the gameplay revolve around a central idea (the time loop)​
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Dialogue that is key to players' progression should always be reviewed and checked for possible misinterpretations, to make sure its intention is as clear as possible to players, in order for them to not get stuck
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Quests and their goals should be unique and distinct enough from each other so the player wouldn't be able to get confused and stuck