Meltdown

Meltdown was made in my first year at Sheridan College for Design Week with Jack Spero, Andrew Qiu, Gabe St Onge, Albert Ojapalo and Dawson Peloquin. We were given the task of creating an escape room game in 4 days.

Our approach to this challenge was to create a meta puzzle consisting of 3 puzzles that culminate into one final puzzle. The puzzles would connect thematically to our narrative of being an office worker who needs to stop a nuclear meltdown. 

Roles

Game Design

When designing the puzzles, we wanted them to come together and fit as part of a larger whole that would tie into our narrative. To accomplish this design challenge, I proposed that each puzzle, once solved, would reward the player with a clue. An element of the periodic table would lead to their atomic number that would serve as the code needed to stop the meltdown. This would connect the players actions to the overall narrative goal. This solution presented new challenges such as how would the player know the right order to implement the code? I solved this challenge by assigning a color to each clue that would correspond with a section of the code. This simple change added clarity to our puzzles.

The puzzle that I designed was the lever and dial that controls the temperature of the nuclear reactor. The lever has three modes (hot, neutral, and cold). Each mode corresponds to the temperature dial that has three sections. For example, by having the lever on cold, the player is restricted to the cold temperatures. Players needed to set the dial to the right temperature to solve the puzzle. This puzzle fit well narratively but failed on its execution. After giving the game to playtesters we noticed that players would solve the puzzle by accident simply through trial and error. A solution to this problem would be to have the player manually input the temperature into the dial. This way by vastly expanding the possibilities the chances of accidentally solving the puzzle are minimized. 


Environmental Art

When creating the environment, I was very limited by the lack of readily available assets. As a result, I had to adapt and make use with what I had. I wanted the environment to tell a story and to add to the gameplay. To do this, I placed various office supplies in disarray to make it clear that the office was abandoned and left in a hurry. The glowing reactor, placed directly in front of the player, is a constant reminder of impeding doom adding to a sense of urgency. The loud siren added to the feeling of fear and panic as the doomsday clock ticks down. To get a consistent feel throughout, for the art assets, I used a cartoony shader that unified the room together.   

Takeaways