Inspiration
Saving Wild Animals
The Australian Bushfire season lasting from June 2019 to May 2020 caused unexpectedly large scale of environmental damages. Despite the tragic and irreparable damage caused by the fire, there were also many heart-warming moments. During the firefighting, firefighters did their utmost to rescue trapped creatures like koalas and kangaroos.
Living with Wild Animals
Since our university locates in the South West of Singapore with lush vegetation, we frequently see animals like boars, macaques, and various species of birds on campus.
However, we don't always live in harmony with the animals on campus.
Due to frequent conflicts between macaques and students, the university finally relocated two of the macaques to a zoo.
Another Possibility with Animals?
There are many kinds of relations between humans and animals, besides humans saving animals from danger and being angered by animals. However, although we often hear the concept of "harmony between humans and animals", we believe that any existing relation cannot achieve this goal because the power of both parties is always unequal.
Therefore, we would like to imagine another possibility for human-animal relations, one in which humans and animals do need to be interdependent, which may be achieved in an environment that requires both parties to use different abilities to survive. We named our game "Earthlings" because humans and animals are equal in the game, so much so that they can be referred to collectively as the same name.
Game Design & Development
Storyline
The forest is on fire. The two characters, Deer and Boy, need to work together to collect as many magic stones as possible and escape the fire together before either of their HPs drops to zero.
Storyboard screenshot.
Local Two-player Game
We incorporated the idea of human-animal cooperation into our games by implementing the two-player mode. While playing, two players can use different sets of keys on the same keyboard to control their characters.
2.5D + Pixel Art
We built the game in a 2.5D environment with pixel art. I was responsible for designing and making pixel sprites for the human character.
Game Mechanism
Game tasks
- Collect as many magic stones as possible before exiting.
- Find the exit and escape from the fire scene.
Characters and Skills
The human character (Boy) and the animal character (Deer) each has unique attributes and skills. Because Boy and Deer both have limited skills and weaknesses in their attributes, they have to cooperate in order to collect magic stones and escape from the fire scene.
Multiple Endings
To add on to the replayability of the game, our team designed three different endings based on the number of magic stones collected and whether the two characters both escape from the fire scene before either of their HPs drops to zero.
I also designed three diffent pixel art scenes for the three endings.
Pre-game Animation
To introduce players to our game story, I created a pre-game animation with Mental Canvas and Adobe Premier Pro.