Daniel Slater – Games Designer

Game Overview

Bunny Hop is a third-person platformer made in Unreal Engine 5.2. In this game, the player controls an anthropomorphic rabbit who was transported to another world. They must travel to different levels, collecting gems to figure out why this happened and find a way home. This game contains movement mechanics such as a dig and wall jump.

Key skills

• Platformer Level Design
• Open Zone level design
• Tutorial Design/Teaching the player
• Game Testing
• Using visual scripting and Blueprints

Design Goals

• Create a Tutorial that teaches the player all of the movement mechanics.
• Create a movement system that fluidly switches between mechanics.
• Create an open first level that encourages the player to explore.

Level Design Process

The design for Bunny Hop began with flow diagrams, followed by top-down sketches of the level layouts.

This progressed to a simple prototype blockout of the tutorial which was used for the first round of testing.

A Level select area was added after the tutorial to allowing the player to complete levels in an order of their choosing.

The original sketch for the first level was blocked out, with changes made to the layout due to the results of playtesting. Areas from the sketch that are located outside of the main map are challenges the player would be teleported into.

3 types of collectibles

• Yellow Disks, main collectibles needed to progress.
• Blue disks, segments of a yellow disk that need to be collected before being able to collect their corresponding yellow disk.
• Carrots, minor collectibles mainly used as breadcrumbs towards more important items or level beats. They are also hidden around the map to encourage further exploration in minute-to-minute gameplay.

Blueprints

Dig Mechanic – Prototype

The dig mechanic is contained within the Character controller. It works by checking if the player is pressing the input button, if this button is pressed then the blueprint checks if the player is falling. This is because the player should not be able to dig whilst in the air. If the player is on the ground then the the visibility and collision of the top of the characters body is changed allowing the player to dig under some objects.

Wall Jump Mechanic

The wall Jump Mechanic is contained within the character controller. This works by combining the wall slide and wall kick blueprints. The wall slide checks to see if the player is in the air and uses a linetrace to check if they are facing a wall.. If both of these conditions are met then the players gravity is lowered. The wall jump checks if the is the player is wallsliding, if they are not then the player will jump normally. If these conditions are met the blueprint gets the players forward and up vectors, using these the player is launched off the wall. The players is also set to rotate 180 degrees allowing this to be followed by another wall jump.

Enemy AI

This Game Prototype contains two types of enemies. One is a simple enemy that slowly walks towards the player. The other is a turret-style enemy which acts as a mini-boss in the game’s first level.

The first enemy uses a pawn sensing component to check if the enemy can see the player. a custom event will trigger if this condition is met, causing the enemy to move towards the player. if the enemy collides with the player it will apply damage, however if the player collides with the top of the enemy then the enemy is destroyed.

The turret enemy also uses a pawn sensing component. If the enemy can see the player the enemies rotation is set to look in their direction. A projectile is spawned after a delay which will shoot at the player inflicting damage on collision. This enemy is destroyed by hitting a button located nearby.

Collectables

The main kind of collectable in this game are Gems. In the first level the players aim is to collect 6 of the 8 collectables. When 6 have been collected the door to the level boss will open. when 8 have been collected a widget will pop up saying that the level is complete. a progress bar will fill as the player collects more gems.

There are also two other types of collectables. Carrots, these act as the games currency, and gem fragments, these spawn a gem when they have all been collected.

Respawn System

The respawn system includes three separate blueprints. The checkpoint blueprint checks to see if the player has collided with it. On collision the blueprint casts to the gamemode and sets the respawn transform to its own location.

The character controller checks to see if the player pawn has been destroyed. when it is destroyed this will play a custom event within the gamemode which spawns the player at the set respawn transform. If the player has not collided with any checkpoints they will be respawned at the start of the level.

Game Overview

This game is a third-person platformer inspired by Banjo Kazooie and New Super Luckys Tale.

The player controls an anthropomorphic rabbit which must find its way home. The game begins with the rabbit falling through a hole into this world. They will wake up in a cave (the tutorial) where they must overcome some challenges and learn to move in its new form. When leaving the tutorial they will enter the level select area where they would meet a fairy which provides the player with the goal of collecting enough gems to power the transporter which would allow them to get home.

The first level is an open area which encourages the player to explore and overcome platforming simple platforming challenges whilst collecting Gems. At first the level will be closed off to the player until they use a boulder to break down a wall opening up the rest of the level.