Robogrid

Assignment: Create a vertical slice of a product and pitch it to industry professionals with a justification of market viability and marketing products.

Role: Mechanics designer

Engine/Tools Used: Unity, Adobe XD, Git

Team Size: 6

Development Time: 3 weeks

Play Here!

Overview

Robogrid is a 1v1 strategy game where you square off against your friends with your own self-built robot! Predict your opponent’s movements, program your robot beforehand with simple commands, and watch it chop, punch and pulverize the opponent.

I was responsible for prototyping and testing the gameplay, designing the game UI, implementing particle effects, and pitching the game to the industry professionals.
The project taught me more about pitching games in a professional setting and provided experience in applying feedback after prototyping.

Design goals

Create a compelling strategy game that has enough depth for players to “outsmart” each other through creative planning and mind games.
Explore what mechanics and features give players a sense of control and agency.
Improve my ability to pitch games by regularly presenting progress updates.
Practice making particle animations using Unity’s particle system.

Personal contributions

Paper prototyped all game mechanics and tested them with peers.
Analysing results and documenting suggestions.
Designed and tested different weapons and upgrades, including their impact on the gameplay.
Designed and tested the game UI.
Implemented particle effects for damage, death and attack animations.
Implemented particle animations
Presented the elevator pitch alongside another team member.

Process

We first started with brainstorming and paper prototyping multiple concepts, testing them with multiple people to see which prototype was most engaging.
Then, when we settled on a prototype, we expanded on it more to also include upgrades and accommodate to multiple play-styles. People especially resonated with those changes, as it gave the game more depth and made people feel more powerful.

At the end of every week we made a progress pitch. Here we focused on improving the main pitch and selling the game to be as interesting and engaging as it was designed to be.

We spent the last of the three weeks polishing the game, adding particle systems and camera movements for a more cinematic feel.
After final tests were conducted we took our hands off the project and focused on perfecting our pitch to the industry professionals.

After the paper prototype was iterated on several times and feedback stopped being fruitful, I moved on to prototyping the UI.

I did this using Adobe XD, taking efforts to translate the “queue programming” part of the paper prototype into a digital counterpart.

This part of the UI shows up between turns so the players can queue up their next 5 movements. The UI then resides back into the right side of the screen as the players watch their moves unfold.

The UI was then passed on to the artists to make it coincide with the existing colour scheme and style.

Outcome

While testing the paper prototypes we were already certain the game was fun for our audience. The different weapons and strategies that derived from them added ample depth and made the players feel smart for winning. In terms of game mechanics, I believe this game was a great success.

While the UI looked a bit cluttered in the end, it was still clear enough for people to understand and work with.

Presenting our final pitch in front of an audience of around 100 students, including two industry professionals, was intimidating at first, but I’m proud I was able to deliver it with confidence and clarity.

Overall, I gained valuable experience in pitching games in a marketable way, and was able to sharpen my skills in mechanic design for strategy games.