Celestara

Project Overview

Celestara is my first attempt at developing a game with multiple levels and a narrative. It is a single-player, 2D platformer with each level designed on concepts of physics and spatial dynamics.  In a journey to find their twin and recover their celestial powers, the character must travel between worlds to solve puzzles and collect fragments of their power.

Tools

Project Type

Focus

Solo development

programming 

feature design

The Process

sketch

implementation

The beginning levels are introductory and serve to be tutorial-style that allows players to explore possible mechanics and the level styles, such as collectible fragments of power, portals, platforms, and puzzles. 

sketch

implementation

I wanted to consistently keep track of each power that the character encountered in a way that was visually appealing and informative. A constant visibility as part of the player's HUD would be easy, but I wasn't sure how many powers the player would eventually encounter-- but the ideation list was already quite long as I wanted the player to experience capabilities with fire, earth, water, and air elements in addition to light, shadows, etc. Displaying all of these features would be redundant with unncessary cognitive overload. My solution was to animate the power bar to appear only when the specific power was collected, before disappearing again. 

I wanted the player to have an exciting way of transporting to the next level. Portals are used to bring the player to the next world where they will tackle a new challenge. The color of the portal foreshadows the theme of the next level.

Liquids are part of the levels that the player will encounter. To make it feel more realistic, buoyancy was a factor to make the player float once submerged in the water. No shaders or packages were used to achieve this effect-- just simple use of the Unity components and animation! 

Narrative

In the universe Celestara, twins are born with shared celestial powers. The story follows one twin character after their sibling vanishes during a mysterious cosmsic event. The twin starts the game weakened and alone, and must find the strength to navigate a series of puzzling worlds.

Although the game starts with the goal of finding the character's lost twin, it is a journey about independence and growth. Always reliant on their twin, the character now has no choice but to explore worlds with their powers gone.  

Challenges

Initially, I was really immersed in the narrative aspect of the game. I had an elaborate story detailed out, but most were hard to incorporate and convey through levels. I recognize that these were due to my own limitations, and my art capabilities (nonexistent) significantly drew me back from creating a project I had so excitedly planned. For example, my player is a blank prototype, as I couldn't find animated sprites that I felt were right for the game. Additionally, I don't consider myself a strong level designer.  I had trouble ideating level styles and relied on colors instead. This mini project allowed me to appreciate the value of teammwork as I learned that game development calls for many diverse skills and experiences.