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How do you mimic the chaotic yet calming vibe of strolling to class?

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Play here (Itch.io)

Game Design Document
​(Google Docs)

Bustlin' is a 2D side-scrolling endless runner-walker game, a CTIN 289 ("Game Development Fundamentals") Final Project at the University of Southern California, developed over 5 weeks.

​Players experience the challenge of strolling to class by weaving their way through the chaotic hubbub of walkers, skateboarders, scooterers, and bikers. You can customize your own difficulty, music, and time of day to fit with your mood. Stay upright for as long as possible to sink into your daydreams!

Montage Video (~4 minutes)

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Overview

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Timeline

November 2022 - December 2022
​1 month

Role

Technical Game Designer
Technical Artist
​Pixel Artist and Animator

Tools

Unity
Visual Studio
Paint.NET
​Piskel

Contributors

Evan Wright (Designer, Artist, Engineer)

Gage Tilly (Designer, Engineer, Sound Designer, Composer)
​
Jonathan Ogilvy (Supervising Professor)

Full Credits

Design: Evan Wright, Gladeline Rufo, Gage Tilly

Art: Gladeline Rufo, Evan Wright

Engineering: Evan Wright, Gladeline Rufo, Gage Tilly

​Soundtrack: Gage Tilly, "Bizarre Love Triangle" composed by New Order and arranged by Gage Tilly

Contributions

I joined the project mainly as a technical game designer and pixel artist​ and contributed to the following:

• Designed and engineered the state machine and Scriptable Objects of the Bustler (NPC) AI to streamline iteration, emphasizing comedic emergent gameplay​
• Created animated characters, environment backgrounds, and alternate color palettes, giving the player customization choices and rewarding skill with a surprising "atmospheric" feeling
• Wrote detailed team instructions for the Animation Controller system, allowing a smoother pipeline for the creation of additional Bustlers using just a single animation state machine

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Detailed Contributions

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Design

Overview:

• ​Archival of the Game Design Document (GDD)
• Design iterations (A.I. requirements, experience goals, etc.)
• Engineering and sprite import settings
• Engineering pseudocode (for ScriptableObjects and A.I.), etc.
• ​Title screen design and direction

​We were required to develop and maintain a GDD for the project's duration. We used this document as a living document to officially archive all of our design considerations and important notes in one place. The GDD helped us have a unified vision and experience goals for the final game.

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Art

Overview:

• Character designs and animations
• ​"Focus State" background final art and implementation
• Nighttime color palettes
• ​Day-Night color palette global manager

To create many varied, colorful assets quickly for the short development time, we chose to use a simple pixel art style. We further unified this style through a limited color palette and specific canvas restrictions.

To bring the game to life, we wanted the characters to appear large, cartoony, and easy to see from multiple camera zooms and environments. We wanted each animation to be unique and lively to make feedback and in-game actions immediately recognizable to the player.

Ultimately, Art, Engineering, and Sound came together to create a small world that gets as big as the player's imagination.

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Engineering & Tech Art

Overview:

• Early overarching GameManager systems
• Core player movement controls code
• Early Bustler (NPC) A.I. code implementation
• A.I. ScriptableObject code implementation and documentation
• Animator Controller systems used across all in-game characters
• Final persistent scoring system
• Cheat Code system

As the final assignment for this course, this game was my first published Unity project, in which I coded in C#. I worked on core systems and other parts of the game to help unify its multiple aspects.

I used this project to learn about parts of the Unity engine that I was previously unable to work in-depth with, such as the Animator Override Controller and parallax effects. Many of these systems can be reused for future 2D Unity projects.

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Marketing

Overview:

• ​Trailer raw footage (no text) cut

For the press kit and final publishable version of the game, we created a polished trailer to promote the game in a fun way. We timed the trailer to the music, dynamic setpieces, and gameplay actions of our clips to show the fun and exciting parts of Bustlin'. This reflects the busy nature of the game (reflecting how many players experienced our game for the first time).

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