Fortune Fiasco
“As a magic curse corrupts the circus, one tiny jester must struggle, against the vicious fortune teller’s puzzles and allies to break the prophecy of ruination”
Fortune Fiasco is about a cursed Circus. You play as Eep, a Jester from the Circus. Talk with the Circus Director and find out what is cursing the grounds and create the Circus curse. Battle bosses in a boss rush game. Solve puzzles and free the innocent.
Find your way through the funhouse and the corn maze to defeat the curse and find the Circus secrets.
What I worked on
I was the main gameplay programmer. I worked on Eep the little jester you played as.
A early version of the character gameplay. Character with Mesh, Texture and Animation.
The video above shows the gameplay and what I worked on. In the game you could roll/dodge, throw a ball and pull it back and run around using keyboard and controller input.
This is how I started working on the project. I started with my own scene made in Unity and programmed in our own engine that the school provides a base for called TGE.
After that I worked on getting animations to play in engine and have them work with the movement and so that the animations played at the right time.
You can break blocks by throwing the ball and you can stop spinning wheels to open doors and collecting items for puzzles by throwing the ball on them.
I used a state machine to make the character. It was something I had not done before but was simple and easy to work with. I understood state machines well while working and thought it was a good way to work when working with gameplay for the first time.
What I am most proud of
Working on Fortune Fiasco I struggled a lot with stress and feeling like I was letting everyone down. It was my first time making anything gameplay related and so it took me a bit to get into it and be confident in my element and so I felt that because I was slower I dragged everyone behind.
So for this project I am most proud that I asked for help more often to learn and understand. I am also proud of myself for making a character controller and gameplay elements that work and work well and by the end of the project I was very comfortable with what I was doing. It was a journey for me going through struggles but ultimately, I got out on the other side and am stronger for it.
What I learned
I learned a lot more about communication during this Project and how to deal with group members who are more difficult to communicate with. Fortune Fiasco was the project after Pitfoil and it was a really big difference in the communication and the group dynamic. It made it really challenging from time to time to work and know what was done and what needed to be done.
I also learned so much about gameplay. I had previously not worked with gameplay and getting to try it was really challenging at first but was easier and easier the more I worked. I think what I learned most of all was that it is important to have a draft of the gameplay early on even if it is just a camera and a cube on the screen moving, it is important to have because then it allows Level Designers to playtest the levels earlier and will allow for more iteration on the levels.
