Yomi: Unbroken
Team Game Project
In Yomi: Unbroken you play as a warrior who finds herself trapped in the Japanese underworld of Yomi. Having made a vow, you must escort your friend back to the surface. Battle strong enemies and solve puzzles as a duo to escape together!
This game was made as a part of a university project during the 2nd year of a BA(Hons) Games Art and Design course at Norwich University of the Arts. It was made by a team consisting of 7 members over the span of 7 weeks.
Game Design Document
During the project, I have written a Game Design Document. It served to describe in detail all planned features of the game and was used as a reference point for all members of the team during the development process. It covers all aspects of the game, ranging from general gameplay outlines and loops, through character descriptions and mechanics, to visual rules, narrative, sound design, and more.
Its content was based on the ideas generated by all team members early on in the project which were then organised and iterated on to form well-designed and interconnected systems that were incorporated into the final version of the game. All of the writing and formatting in this document was done by myself, with the exception of the Visual Rules & Narrative chapter which was largely written by concept artists and edited by myself. The document has 32 pages in total.
Technical Insights & Highlights - Room Management System
One of the more technically impressive features I have developed for this project was the room management system. It oversees the procedural generation of the level, randomising the order of premade rooms the player goes through in a controlled manner. It splits the level into sections, which allow for controlling the difficulty curve throughout the level. Some rooms can be given priority and specific weights, causing them to always appear at the start of the section. It can be used, for example, to guarantee the tutorial rooms spawn first.
Team Members
Jan Karmański (me!)
Game design, gameplay coding, level design, team management
Spencer Lancaster
Concept art (characters, enemies, props), splash arts, UI artwork
Francis Perks
Game design, gameplay & AI coding
Megan Martin
Concept art (props) & UI artwork
Jade Tubb
Art direction, concept art, UI artwork, narrative, level design
Anna Constable
3D assets - props & environments
Bethany Stacey
3D assets - character models & animations, props
My Responsibilities
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Gameplay Programming (in UE4 Blueprint)
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Player movement & abilities
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Puzzle mechanics & elements
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Room progression & generation
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Dialogue system
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Player & enemy animation code
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Saving
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UI programming
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Game Design
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Designing gameplay mechanics, game loops, etc
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Writing & maintaining a Game Design Document
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Narrative co-writing, aligning narrative with gameplay & creative vision
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Level Design
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Building blockouts
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Visual polishing
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Playtesting
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Organising & hosting weekly playtesting sessions with other students
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Collating feedback into tasks & logging bug reports
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Product Ownership & Team Leadership
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Led creative direction of the game
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Worked with Scrum Master to organise Scrum meetings and distribute tasks
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Managing task backlog using Trello
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Looked after the team's wellbeing
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