Luv is everywhere

Narrative

through Gameplay

I designed the systems to create an experience where the player must adopt a restless, nomadic behavior in order to obtain a high score. Because the player cannot take a picture of the same object twice, they must move throughout the city to find new material. This restless tone is reinforced by hordes of AI that follow the player and can impede their progress. 

System Breakdown:

Designing Feedback for Nontraditional Mechanics

For an experience as simple as this, execution of core mechanics was of the highest importance. Due to the more open-ended structure of the game, each of the systems had to be both satisfying in its own right, as well as complement the other systems it was cohabiting the game with.

Visual and Audio Feedback

Due to the concept of the game being less than traditional, it is really important that players be able to figure out how to interact with the different objects. I designed and implemented a point and click system to work with 3D environment, and made sure to use both visual and sonic feedback to inform the player about what they were doing at every moment.

Using visual feedback to create a sense of progression

I designed Luv is everywhere to create some key experiences. I wanted to give the impression that in some way the player was taking over the city. I found that visual feedback systems that I had in place already created this impression. I wanted to create this sense of progression that the player was slowly converting the city into something else, but also at the same time evoke a threat. The more progression the player makes, the harder it will be to keep playing the game because of the diminishing resources. 

Game Feel:

Making Clicking Addicting

Making the core mechanic engaging was an important element in this case. A lot of how I engaged players was through animated feedback. The most important element of this was the hit marker. The hit marker includes a counter that appears and disappears with the heart. every time a player likes an object, the player can see the icon appear, and then tick up one click, and disappear with the heart icon. I think this lent a strong energy to the process of what were very straightforward mechanics and made them much more satisfying to interact with. 

Level Design

I wanted to capture the unearthly beauty of walking around an empty city. Part of the reason I created long unbroken lines of sight was to create moments where the player could look all the way down a street for blocks at a time. I wanted the player to feel as small and alienated as possible. The skyscrapers that create the Urban canyons help contribute to that atmosphere. This ostensibly from a gameplay standpoint makes each of these areas a arena where the player can use the game’s systems how they want.

Environmental

Interactions

Vending Machines:

Vending Machines are placed strategically throughout the city. Their placement is intended to draw upon two challenges, both tracking down the machine, and then managing resources effectively buy purchasing battery at strategic times to save money. 

Singular City Objects:

Streetlights and hedges are used here, because they are dull everyday objects and are at about head height. This makes it very easy and natural for the player to hit large numbers of them very fast.

Multipart City Objects

These pieces are rarer and are intended to mix things up for the player a little bit, while still aesthetically being dull everyday objects. The manhole and steam are intended to perhaps hint to the player that maybe there is something more going on in the game world, because steam doesn’t normally turn into blocks. 

Wall Objects

These barriers are placed at the edges of the map mostly to make the player feel trapped into the level.

Non player character OPPONENTS

These NPCs follow the player and try to trap them in corners, while allowing the player to farm them for additional likes if they need.

Audio Assets

Audio Design was an important element in the process of establishing tone in this piece. A lot of the reverb ambient synthesized tracks draw inspiration from blade runner if anything, to reinforce the feeling of being alone in an eerie city scape. Likewise, a lot of “satisfaction” in the core mechanics of a game can be derived through the use of clever sonics, so I spent a sizable amount of time in this project simply creating eerie tri-tonal mobile phone notification noises. This functions to reinforce the context of the mechanics as being part of mobile phone app, and to be used as a design allowance for feedback (players most likely already have some sense of what those notifications mean) as well as sonic, as tri-tones don’t harmonize with other sounds and therefore will lay on top of the mix. 

Ambient Tracks:

Audio Cues:

Non Player Character Design

Designing engaging obstacles for the player to overcome is a key part of any game, and non the less a large part of Luv is everywhere. A core element I looked into was the shape of the enemy non player characters. I decided to choose a sphere shape for them, because most people find circles nonthreatening. I didn’t want the followers to be all that aggressive, rather more just distracting and a potential threat in large numbers. Players are intended to get stuck on them, and they are intended to coerce the player into going into new areas of the level. The audio design is intended to be strange and somewhat endearing and turn into an overwhelming drone in larger numbers.

Likewise, players can use these followers to their advantage. Players are able to use their followers to farm more likes, but they are not able to remove them.