Overview
Shrimp Magicality is a walking simulator with RPG elements. The player assumes the role of “The Professor,” a lecturer from University of Woofington. She is an absent minded brainiac with a case of insomnia due to a major worry in her life.
One day, she finds her apartment being bug bombed by chickens. She passes time by wandering a surreal imagination of Seattle. And finds herself passing out into dreams. Players will explore high voltage, neon-pastel environments. Through these dreams, the players may give the Professor a chance at a good night’s rest.
Goal 1: Learning how to develop in Unity
Our team wants to push the envelope of our development skills. In our last project, Fatal Runtime, we set out to create the game in Unity. However, our team encountered many challenges with Unity’s steep learning curve.
In interest of time, we shifted to a different engine to complete that project. With our second game, Shrimp Magicality, we wanted to commit to Unity start to finish. To complete this project, our developer would have to learn programming and maneuvering Unity bottom up.
Goal 2: Designing Gameplay Systems
As we write this blog, Shrimp Magicality has been in development for a year. Our last project had a simple survival-horror mechanic of avoiding a singular threat. With Shrimp Magicality, we wanted to challenge ourselves with more complexity. We planned a series of dreams to be vertical slices of different genres, but our goals evolved. We decided to design a more harmonious and coherent experience for our players. Shrimp Magicality evolved into a walking simulator with role playing elements.
Goal 3: 3D Modeling
Our previous project used dark, minimalistic, retro-styled visuals inspired by the Famicon/Nintendo console. With Shrimp Magicality, we wanted to explore an inverse palette. The colors are bright and neon-paste, the character designs are playful and zany.
Another major shift is from 2D pixel art to 3D graphics. It will be our first time creating and working with 3D models. Our artist had to learn from scratch how to create environments and objects using Crocotile 3D (my cohort Alex HW’s amazing tool) and Blender.
The Makening
We hope to deliver the project to you all in a playable form in the coming months. Stay tuned!