Celestial Rebirth Walkthrough
If you are interested in trying this project, please do so before watching the videos as they will show the solutions to all puzzles currently in the game. The game can be downloaded from Itch.io from the link at the top of this page.
Game overview
Celestial Rebirth is a third-person physics puzzle game inspired by other games in the genre such as Portal.
The game’s main mechanic is placing objects, objects are placed in the player’s current position before the player is set back to the start of the room or to their placable spawn point.
The player is also able to delete objects they have placed or reset a room to its initial state.
There are multiple objects the player can place, these are;
The weighted cube (a cube that presses buttons and can be climbed on to cross gaps).
The bounce pad (a pad that launches the player into the air).
A zero gravity platform (a platform that remains stationary wherever it is placed).
A temporary spawn point (a spawn point that the player can place, changing the position they will respawn when placing an item).
Design Goals
- Create a simple main mechanic that lends itself to interesting puzzle limitations.
- Create a tutorial that effectively teaches the game’s main mechanics.
- Create puzzles that capture the feeling of a eureka moment.
Key Skills
- Linear Level Design
- Puzzle Design
- Tutorial Design/Teaching the player
- Mechanic prototyping
- Narrative design
- UI Design
Design Process
The spiral method of design was used during the creation of this prototype.
The initial idea was planned on paper, with sketches of puzzle ideas and listing possible items the player can spawn. These ideas were expanded by creating interactions between these items that would lend themselves to puzzles.
Puzzle Room Images
Images of each room in the project, and how they fit into the flow. Watch the gameplay video for puzzle solutions.
- Puzzles come from combining placable objects in different ways.
- puzzles also come from considering the placement of objects and the positon that the player will return too after placing them, meaning that players need to carefully consider positioning when approaching a puzzle.
- Puzzles had been thoroughly tested to ensure there is a dominant strategy and no alternative methods of solving them.
- Rooms are ordered to create a consistent flow for the difficulty, only lowering the difficulty of a puzzle to introduce a new object or mechanic.
- blue glowing lines added to make the interacions of each button clear to the player.
Blueprints
Spawning items
The player is able to spawn a number of different items. When placing these actors the players character is destroyed and respawned back at the rooms spawn point.
Each object as a set amount of times they can be placed in each room. These are set in the gamemode whenever an item is placed or the item counter is reset.
place able objects are unlocked as the player progresses through the game these items are a weighted cube (used to press buttons), Bounce Pad (used to launch player higher into the air), zero gravity platform (a platform that remains stationary in the air), and a placeable spawn point (acts as the players respawn point unless it is destroyed or the player reactivates the rooms permeant spawn point). See video for a demonstration of all of these.
Destroying Items
The player is able to destroy items they have placed, this adds one to that specific items counter and removes the item from the play space.
This is done using a first person shooter mechanic. when the player presses the right mouse button the camera will move to a first person perspective allowing the player to aim.
Daniel Slater - Games Designer 