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Project Scope

The Vertical Slice - a proposal

Anima Mundi is a side-scrolling, mobile puzzle platformer about a Shaman that begins a journey in the air region, the second level/region proposed in the Anima Mundi GDD. The narrative is that he is traversing a region of floating islands and must surpass a series of environmental puzzles in order to light up the region and bring peace to its habitants. He is on a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment and on this quest, he will learn to find peace within himself.

 

The player will be able to explore a beautiful environment that will feel immersive and help them to feel at ease. This will be accomplished through thematic music, wondrous landscapes as well as beauty in little details in the surrounding nature such as inhabiting animals and sweet Japanese inspired architecture.

 

As a development team, our goals are to create a vertical slice that showcases the theme, tone and astonishing discovery presented in the Anima Mundi GDD. Our focus is on providing an immersive experience through beautiful visuals and gratifying yet simple interactions to give the player a feeling of content.

 

We have made the decision to make the vertical slice 2D rather than 3D because we felt as though we could more successfully achieve these design goals if we were to make the most of our 2D artistic ability. So, to reiterate, the main focus’ for our vertical slice are beauty and satisfying environment-interactive puzzles.

Features

The Shaman

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Animal Spirits

  • Eagle

  • Butterflies

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Player Movement:

  • Walk

  • Jump

  • Idle

  • Gust ability

  • Boulder-throw ability

  • Falling

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Player Abilities

  • Gust (a gust of wind that can be blown to apply a force)

  • Boulder throw (can be used to walk or climb over)

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5 Interactive Puzzles and Their Pieces

  • Fill a gap in a bridge (using boulder throw)

  • Clear clouds covering your view of the platforms (using gust)

  • Restore life to a fallen, wilting tree (using gust)

  • Spin the turbine on a windmill (using gust)

  • Play a tune on panpipes to clear an eagle from blocking the path (using gust)

Boulder throw can also be used to climb upon to reach higher/further platforms

 

User Interface

  • Movement

  • Settings

  • Prompts (for tutorial purposes)

  • Menu’s (start screen, pause, credits)

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Music and Sound Effects

  • Soundtrack

  • Sound effects

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The Setting

  • Stunning sky

  • Parallax layers of detail

  • Environment Details (for decoration)

  • Floating platforms to traverse up through the level

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The End Scene

  • A courageous jump into the unknown

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Presentation Format

How the features will appear in the vertical slice.

 

The Shaman is an androgynous creature that carries a staff, which provides them with the power to use their abilities.  They wear a cape.

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The movement will be kept simple. The idle will be a simple bobble and when the Shaman jumps, their cape will flow in the wind. For the ability animations; the Shaman will move the staff in differing motions depending on what ability is used. When using the boulder throw ability, a boulder will be pulled from the earth and thrown through the air.  When using the gust ability, a visible gust of wind will be formed upon the shaman winding up the wind with the staff. 

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The interactive puzzles will be at equal distances along the stretch of the level. The two simplest and straight forward puzzles (bridge gap fill and cloud clearing puzzles) will take place first to introduce the abilities to the players. The more intuition-required puzzles will take place after. A detailed description of each puzzle, and any changes that are made to them are all documented in my blog posts. 

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The user interface will be kept minimal as this game includes little to no action and the focus is on  the beauty and small meaningful interactions. Designed for mobile, the only necessary UI on the play screen will be, prompts, ability icons and a staff charging bar as there will be a delay between uses, as well as a button to get back to the main menu/settings page. A start screen and end screen will also be implemented.

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The soundtrack for the game will be uniquely composed by our sound designer. It will be peaceful and soothing, as well as happy and run for the length of the game. Then some sound effects will be necessary, activated when the player interacts with something. For example, a gust of wind when the player uses the gust ability and a thump when the boulder hits the ground. 

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The setting: the vertical slice will be set in the air region described in the games design document as a vast land up in the clouds. The player will have to jump from one floating island to the next and on those islands is where the puzzles will take place. The game has significant links to Japan and the shinto religion, so the environment will be inspired by Japanese culture, including details such as the cherry blossom tree and Torri gates which are found at the entrance of Shinto shrines.

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Asset List

Sprites

  • Shaman

  • Decor Clouds

  • Blossom Trees

  • Shrubs

  • Huts

  • Torri gates

  • Mountains

  • Lanterns

  • Bridge

  • Boulder

  • Puzzle Clouds

  • Eagle

  • Butterfly

  • Windmill

  • Sky

Animations

  • Idle

  • Walk

  • Jump

  • Fall

  • Boulder Throw

  • Gust Motion

  • Gust of Wind

  • Butterfly

  • Eagle Fly

  • Eagle Idle

  • Eagle Take off

  • Rain Cloud

  • Tree Revival

  • Turbine

  • Music Notes

Scripts

  • Player movement

  • Puzzle scripts

  • Camera move

  • Re-spawn

  • Checkpoints

  • Butterfly move

  • Eagle move

  • Cloud move

UI

  • Start screen

  • Pause Menu

  • Settings

  • End screen

  • Welcome prompt

  • Boulder prompt

  • Gust prompt

Lighting

Sound

  • Soundtrack

  • Boulder thump

  • Gust of wind

  • Pan flutes

Other

  • Posters

  • Social Media

  • Website

Pipeline Analysis + Key Milestones

Below is a table presenting the project pipeline, pieced together by Emilia and I.

Anima Mundi Pipeline (1).jpg

This details our plan for the project, our targets for when we want to begin a process and then when we expect to finish it by. These have been kept somewhat broad as more specific tasks will require more planning and more refined timelines.  

 

As you can see the first major objective is establishing the refined project scope which explains our complete plan for what we wish to achieve over the length of this project and what we expect to present through the vertical slice. This needs to be completely finished by the end of week three. 

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The first four weeks of the project have been reserved for planning and design, as well as beginning the process of creating final assets. Week 6 is the launch where we knuckle down on development. This is when I expect to be importing what we are creating into unity and begin building the vertical slice. So the I will six whole weeks to get this done. I have given us this much time because I know that I am going to require some training and would like to begin surgery session with James as soon as possible. 

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Our key milestones:

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Week 1: Launch

Week 2: Plan

Week 4: Design

Week 6: Develop

Week 10: Begin Play-testing

Week 11: Fix and Flourish

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Task Timeline

Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 10.30.16.png
Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 10.30.44.png

Above is a complete timeline of the project presenting what every member of the group was working on week, by week. The purpose of this timetable towards the end was keeping track of which task were beign worked on as assigned tasks became more and more specific. 

Budget 

Here is a refined version of the budget for Anima Mundi. This was created by Emilia and I and establishes the full cost of the project as well as our desired profit, the appropriate price to charge for the game and how many units we will have to sell to achieve our target profit. 

BudgetInverted.png
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