SolarGram's Fix It Shop

Date

August - November 2023

Role

Systems Designer, Programmer and UI Artist

Genre

Puzzle/Narrative

Team Size

4

Project Type

Academic

Game Design Document

GDD can be found here!

SolarGram's Fix It Shop is a 3D Solarpunk game where players co-manage a repair and refurbish shop with their grandmother. Players are to engage with a diverse cast of characters seeking assistance, listen to their unique stories and explore the vibrant Solarpunk world! You are to balance shop management, character interaction as you refurbish and repair the customer's belongings.

As a Systems Designer and Programmer, I managed the majority of the backend framework, including NPC spawning, item assigning, data structuring, data storage, and determining NPC urgency for visiting the shop. These framework components work cohesively, supporting each other by supplying and sharing necessary data. In addition, I served as the sole UI Artist for the game. I created all the UI assets and arranged them to enhance the game's polished appearance.

Game Link

Code Repo

Devlog

Game Overview

Brief preview of SolarGram's Fix it Shop

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SolarGram's Fix It Shop - Gameplay Trailer (Video | Click to Play)

This video showcases the game trailer of SolarGram's Fix It Shop.

NPCs visiting your Shop

Players will encounter NPC customers visiting their repair shop throughout the course of the game. The customers are spawned and assigned by a backend Spawn Manager, ensuring a smooth and organized process. Customers will arrive with their broken items and engage in conversation with the player about the issue. The player will then repair the item and return it to the customers to complete the repair task.

Solving Puzzles using Blueprints

The main objective of SolarGram's Fix It Shop is to repair items! Players will face puzzle-like repairs, guided by a blueprint provided by your grandmother. She left just enough clues for you to figure out how to fix the items brought in by customers. The repair puzzles are designed to offer a balanced level of challenge, ensuring player engagement without causing frustration. Consistent color schemes are also seen throughout the blueprints.

Creative Process

Brief showcase of the game's creative process

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Pitch Deck

This pitch deck was developed to present our final major project to our lecturers. The primary objective was to create an emergent narrative and event system. This system allows all components to work seamlessly together, interact with each other, and enhance the immersive experience for players.

Our game concept revolves around crafting an open-world 3D Solarpunk experience. In the game, players collaborate in running a repair and refurbish shop co-owned by their grandmother, and set in a vibrant Solarpunk world. The gameplay involves interacting with a diverse cast of characters who visit the repair shop seeking assistance with their items. Amidst the repair tasks, players get to immerse themselves in the unique stories of these characters. This dynamic blend of shop management, character interaction, and exploration forms the core of our Solarpunk gaming experience.

Narrative

SolarGram's Fit It Shop is a solarpunk mechanic simulator where player's take on the role of Pomo, who is taking over their grandmother's iconic repair shop on a post-climate disaster earth.

The repair shop is an oasis in a dilapidated old city which is flooded due to the rise in sea level and climate change on earth. The player can meet a variety of people and interact with them via Video Call through the drones that bring in the machines that need to be repaired.

The player can learn about the Virant social life that still exists in their isolated town and the struggles against CleanTech which is trying to claim this town as its own whilst fixing a variety of machines that come to them multiple states of disrepair.

Personal Aims

My personal aims include topics I wanted to cover and explore for this project.

• Develop and design a semi open-world PC game about repairing items with the use of Utility AI systems organising task structures and priority.

• Create a robust repair system that has a seamless and continuous flow of content within the game.

• Incorporate a checkpoint system that assesses the player's progression, accurately gauges their current location, and systematically adapts to their chosen path.

• Gather player behavioural data by tracking their in-game selections, feeding the collected information into the narrative for a more adaptive storyline based on their choices.

Responsibilities

List of responsibilities and contributions to the game

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My responsibilities as a Systems Designer & Programmer includes:

• Designing and implementing NPC systems, including NPC spawning, item assignment, NPC visiting priority, and narrative events
• Developing a calculation method to determine repair urgency for the Repair Queue System
• Managing all world data within the game and managing data output for each calculation

Narrative NPCs and Freeplay NPCs

NPCs in SolarGram's are divided into Core Narrative NPCs and Freeplay NPCs. Core Narrative NPCs carry narrative elements that influence gameplay and future narrative conversations. In contrast, Freeplay NPCs engage in similar-style conversations that do not impact future narratives. Throughout the game, you'll learn more about the world you live in, giving you insights about what happened and what pushed civilization into a Solarpunk world.

Backend Queue System (Final Design Implemented in Game)

Queue System handles the Core Narrative NPCs and Random NPCs. It handles the priority between each NPC and their item. The priority is calculated by depending on a Repair Urgency calculation.