Labyrinth — making a game out of a tv show
We started this year with a tech sprint, a two-week sprint of innovation and learning where everyone is free to pitch ideas. We formed new teams and got together and this year some of us tried to make a game prototype out of the long running kids tv-show called Labyrinth.
It’s a program where children compete against a figure called Daidalos where they try to get through a maze and some other challenges guarded by different robots. The latest season 8 can be viewed at SVT Barn.
Game Design
We started out with a design studio were we tried to combine these goals:
- A clear connection to the tv show and the characters
- A feasible scope for making a fun playable prototype in just two weeks
- An easy UI for kids playing on a mobile or a tablet.
We then decided to make:
- A top down view of a maze where the player starts out at one end with the goal to reach the other end.
- A Slime lake with moving platforms. The player must jump on them in order to reach the other side.
In the maze, the player must collect three life discs in order to open the gate to the second room with the slime lake. These life discs are placed around the maze and when found the player must stand still next to it in 4 seconds in order to have it. This way of getting a life disc was of course a compromise for the prototype. In a real game this should instead be an entry point for some kind of mini puzzle or challenge.
At the same time as you as a player runs around the maze, the character Taurus is chasing you and tries to shoot you with slime. If hit, you either lose one of your collected discs or, if you have none, it’s game over!
Implementation
We used the game engine Unity which is the one we use to make our mobile app “Bolibompa”.
From a developer perspective Unity provides a lot of built in components, which provides different functionality to use for different tasks. One problem to solve was how Taurus could move and detect the player. For that we used the built in Unity component “Nav mesh agent”. But the main detection logic was done using a detection area (measure the distance to the player) and by using a Raycast. The raycast was used to see if Taurus hit the player but it was terminated if it hit a wall first, thus allowing the player to hide.
When Taurus saw the player it throwed slime using the Particle system.
In the second room, the slime lake, the player needs to jump over moving platforms and move from one side to the other. While jumping the player can be hit by a slime cannon. We made a “angry birds” kind of controller for the player movement.
3D modelling and animation
We used Blender, a free 3D tool to make the props and the characters.
When doing a mobile game it’s important to understand that especially for more low end devices, you need to consider the complexity of the models and resolution of the textures used.
Both the player and Taurus were made as low poly models that were rigged by using Rigify, which is a plugin for Blender. Rigging is the process of making a bone structure for the mesh. This is necessary in order to do animations where you move the position and rotation of these bones.
Take aways
- We did just a prototype but the feeling was that Labyrint definitely is a suitable tv show to make a game out of
- Unity is a flexible game engine that’s rather easy to start using even if you’re a beginner
- This was a fun project and we learned a lot!
