Cargo Hauler Finished (Post Mortem)
Cargo Hauler is a game developed within Unity, featuring original music from audio collaborator Wayde Suchodolskiy. It was developed with the intentions of being shown at an expo, and to be placed online. This was the foundation for many of my design decisions. Due to the expo, I decided that there would be no button to exit the game (so that people at the expo don’t close it), that there would only be a single high score, and that the controls would be displayed in the game every time it is played. If the game is left idle, eventually the game will be lost, returning the game to the game over screen, ready for the next player. Since the game was going to be put online, I chose to include only the things which Wayde and I made, as well as Unity’s default assets.
Although a lot changed from what I originally planned to implement in this game to what I actually implemented, I am still very happy with Cargo Hauler. Some ideas, such as platforms moving to the beat, would not have blended well with the fast-paced gameplay, and would have had a negative effect on the experience as a whole.
I decided that cargo would award points, instead of causing the player to lose the game if they are all lost/dropped and that the player would lose if they fell into the lava, with the ground dropping after a certain amount of time. This both gives the player incentive to continue forward, but also adds significant importance to cargo, because it can massively impact the final score. It is easy to lose cargo, so this was a very effective solution.
If I were to do this project again, or continue working on it, I would do some things differently. I would aim to give gameplay some more variety. I would achieve this by adding more tiles (which are suitable and don’t negatively affect gameplay). This would be best to do after feedback, as players might like to see certain specific types of tiles. It would also have been nice to have parts of the game react to the music, as well as the music reacting to the game. At this point, I can’t think of how I could have done that, since the game is fast-paced, and if the level reacted to the music, it could handicap the player and stop the game from being fun. The part of the game which I am happiest with is how fun it is to play, especially to compete with others for the high score. My classmates have also commented on the game being fun to play.
I learned a lot about C# and Unity while working on this project, particularly all the work that needs to go into making a car look and feel right (like a car). Although Cargo Hauler has a lot of different aspects, the hardest to implement was the vehicle itself. Wheels are very difficult to make work. Theoretically, with enough time, wheels could be simulated by applying forces at points on the car, and applying an upward force when it is on the ground, so that it floats just above the ground. This method requires a lot of fine tuning, so that the car isn’t bouncy. It would also need a lot of work to make the car turn properly, since forces would need to be applied to the car at the position of the wheels to make it turn.
I am relatively happy with the way this game turned out, especially because of the struggles I had to overcome while making it. I can also see room for improvements, so I understand the kind of things which I should give more focus to in the future.
Cargo Hauler can be downloaded from my portfolio.