office-zone with cat

Screen Shot 2017-01-16 at 1.51.28 AM.png

for hugs

Controls:

WASD + mouse to move + look
Left-click to interact
Shift to run
Space to jump

Objective (optional?)

Play hide & seek with cat:
1. Embrace cat at home.
2. Click through text.
3. Cat blinks around office zone — catch it.
4. Click through text.
5. Repeat.
6. Quit anytime.

'Secret codes':
- welcome to the fantasy zone — reduce gravity (cumulative)
- varla - increase move + run speed (cumulative)
- wait - 80% chance cat will stay where it is for longer (cumulative)
- silence - toggle music (persists between play sessions & works everywhere)

Tips:
Cat is different color in office zone. Also small. Often hiding (e.g. at end of dead-end alleys, on rooftops) but sometimes not.
You can walk up various building walls (clunky BethSoft style).
Chance plays a big role — if you’re focused on finding cat, playtime can be 5 seconds to 20+ minutes. That's okay.
Use 'secret codes'. Type the letter keys while you’re in office-zone. Spaces are optional.

Credits:

Original building model is from the free "Town Houses Pack" by ChermandirKun on the Unity Asset store: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/42717
Pixelation, Color tweaks, and cat textures via Colorful FX by Thomas Hourdel: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/44845
Also used: the ProCore Bundle (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/15447) for reforming the building, making the cat, etc.

Audio is basically an attempt to sound like ~2000's era Boards of Canada (via recollection -- it's been a few years).
Audio features a loop (the sashaying cymbals) from "The Forge" bundle by Hecq, which was a free thingy via Ableton at some point.

Postscriptum

Sorry for the lateness. I was very excited by hugs’ magnificent wish-list, and became painfully swollen with ambition. Decided to just cut off all the growing bits and let this little sprout die in the sunshine, not too far from the deadline.

Here is hugs excellent and inspiring wish-list:

```
things i would like:

• weird screen aspect ratios/pixel aspect ratios
• mixed resolution
• non-representational colour palettes
• chillness
• cosyness
• secret codes
• cat
• red key
• german expressionism
• welcome to the fantasy zone
• the feeling that things are going to be alright

of course don't feel obligated to cover everything or anything that's going to be too much of a pain to implement!
```

Obviously, I did not hit all of them.

Did you know that some very good German Expressionist films are freely available online?

The Golem: [https://archive.org/details/TheGolem\_893]
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: [https://archive.org/details/thecabinetofdrcaligari]
Nosferatu: [https://archive.org/details/Nosferatu\_DVD\_quality]
From Morning to Midnight: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTHWiPWlPHg]

Event Created For: 
Made For: 
An event

Comments

hugs's picture

there are a lot of

there are a lot of almost-had-it moments if you're going for the cat. i turned around one time to see it just before it disappeared. kinda spooky.

anyway this is fantastic, thank you!!

Glad to hear it! I was

Glad to hear it! I was worried the experience would end up being mostly looping around the same circuit of buildings whilst cursing that dang cat for hiding so well.

Thank you for the inspiring wish-list -- it's been a lot of fun to think about!

Bonus Material

Oops. Meant to post this with the game.
Started making a slightly more substantial music track, but the progression felt at odds with the cadence of being in office-zone, so I clipped it down to a much shorter loop for the game.

This is the full-length thing, prior to trimming.

AttachmentSize
township_of_underlit_angles_wav.zip35.54 MB
clyde's picture

I love this space. Also,

I love this space. Also, climbing buildings and jumping from roof-to roof is very satisfying. The tilted, bent buildings makes everything novel. It feels like you put a lot of effort into making a compelling space; I appreciate that.

Thanks for the feedback! I

Thanks for the feedback!

I didn't have much time to work on the project, so the level is pretty much all there is (and it's just the same building mesh repeated, after being edited once). The aesthetic is heavily influenced by (my memory of) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which, if you can stomach old black and white films, I would definitely suggest checking out.

Alchiggins's picture

I want more games worlds

I want more games worlds with this sort of geometry. This is a pretty sweet vignette!

ditto

I want more worlds influenced by German Expressionism too. You should make some!

mkapolk's picture

The wonky office zone is

The wonky office zone is really good! I love the effect of certain buildings being low rez, how did you do that?

Thanks! There are two parts

Thanks!

There are two parts to the pixel effect:
1. To get pixelation, I used one of the filters included with 'Colorful FX' from the Unity Asset Store (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/44845). There are some other ways to do this with render-textures, writing your own camera effect, etc. but I didn't have time to try out alternatives.
2. To mix the pixelation with normal resolution, I used two cameras with different culling options, so they render (or don't render) certain layers. All of the pixely objects are in a 'renderPixel' layer, and all of the non-pixelated objects are in a 'renderStandard' layer.

There are some interesting idiosyncrasies as a result:
- Pixelated things don't cast shadows on non-pixelated things (and vice-versa).
- Pixelated things can have non-pixelated cut-out border artifacting. I'm guessing this is because the ColorfulFX filter isn't pixelating the depth buffer (or whatever).

Attached some screenshots for clarification.

AttachmentSize
camera_inspector_culling_mask.png60.28 KB
camera_hierarchy.png15.94 KB
pensive-mosquitoes