Falmouth University 3rd year Project
The Last Nomads was our University 3rd year project. Me and my team had the whole academic year to develop and create a playable game. This could either be a vertical slice or the whole game
Our team of 12 developers decided to combine both and came up with
'The Last Nomads'.
The Last nomads is an RTS, Survival, Nomadic city builder with a twist. As the player is building up their camp, a deadly storm chases them forcing the player to pack and move in order to stay ahead of it.
The player must lead their camp from one side of the map to the other. While travelling the player must find food, water and building resources for camp along the way in order to stay alive.
Winner of the Bravery award during the Falmouth Games Academy online EXPO 2020!
Team Project
September 2019 - July 2020
Project Info and Role
My Role
Game Design:
To create a fun and enjoyable Game loop for an RTS game.
To create a readable and informative design document.
Level & World Design:
Design a world that has multiple challenging levels.
UX/UI Design:
Create a placeholder UI/UX system for in game and out of game menus.
Development Information
Game Name: The Last Nomads
Genre: RTS , Survival , City Builder
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Platform: PC
Team Composition: 3 Designers, 6 Artists, 1 Animator and 2 Programmers.
UI/UX Design
During the development I designed place holder UI for playtests. The idea was that the team's UI artist would take the template and make a more fitting version. This was swapped out later for a new and improved version for the final project.
The design was inspired by Frostpunk and Surviving the Aftermath. I split the screen in half with buttons on the bottom and info on the top to reduce mouse travel time.
Level Designs
The levels for the game were made after we got the main mechanics implemented. Because of this we had little time to design and make them. In order to speed up the designs we decided to use the Geological map of Barranca Gulch as the level's designs. This meant we went straight to making the level then designing it on paper.
We looked at the map and decided where the best areas for levels would be. Each place where a level is playable we put an icon. The levels then matched the layout of the geographical map of Barranca Gulch.
The idea was to have 11 levels that the player could choose to move to. Each level creating a different path and a different way to play each playthrough.
For example level 2 and 3 were on different routes and if you picked level 2 the next level you would move to is 4. This meant that when the player came back and started a new game, they could go a different route and have a different experience.
A total of 5 levels were made but only 4 were good enough to add to the final game.
personal accomplishments and Expo
There were many problems during the development of this game. However, there were also some rewarding moments for the whole team. Things such as getting people from the games industry to play our game and being given an award at the 2020 Falmouth Games Expo.
During the development we had visitors from the games industry come in to look at the student projects. When our game was play tested by these visitors we were told that no student team has attempted a game of this size and with this time frame.
Their advice to us was to think of a new project and scrap this one entirely otherwise we'd never finish it and have the potential of getting a low grade. After this we spoke as a team and decided to continue development while changing some features.
In doing this, we managed to complete the game and win the Bravery award at the 2020 Falmouth Games Expo. Something we thought we wouldn't achieve.
Also, one of the characters in our game was used on the promotional posters for the Expo. This really made the team happy and made us realise that we have created a game that was bigger and more complicated then most games that are submitted in a university course.
Problems with development
The development of The Last Nomads came with many problems. These ranged from scope of the game, to global pandemics that no one had planed for.
Scope & Team size
A quarter of the way through the project we decided to sit down as a team and talk about moving forward with the project. A lot of worry came up about the amount of art needed for a game like this. Along with that we also needed a story for the game as we wanted the player to feel like they were working towards something.
This meant we needed a bigger team. But in expanding the team it also meant we were going to need a director. After we choose a Director and Art director we then added 3 writers, 5 new artists , a sound designer and 3 voice actors. Making the team 24 people.
There were some problems with managing a team of this size as it hadn't been done in the course before. But with help from our lecturers and careful planning we managed to over come this. Only to be hit with a problem no one saw coming.
Covid 19
During the development of this project the outbreak of Covid 19 shut the University down and forced everyone into lockdown. This meant we had to switch to online development instead of face to face, It also meant we were in our houses all day. This caused multiple problems.
The first problem was motivation. Stuck in our houses and the same rooms all day caused our motivation and creativity to plummet. Work slowed down, assets and mechanics were only half implemented, and getting help from team members became hard to get as we had to talk each other through it without visually seeing the problem.
We also couldn't get as much help as we got from our lectures as fast as we could before. If we had a problem that the team couldn't help with, we had to write and wait for our lectures to get to us as there were many students struggling with the change.
The pandemic also prevented us from using software and technology we had at University such as Cintiq's. Some team members headed home before the lockdown hit us and didn't have access to the equipment we needed. This slowed down UI implementation and creation.
The course also had the idea of hosting an expo for the end of the year. This was then cancelled and replaced with an online expo to fit in with the new isolation rules. Because of this, all the work for the expo we'd done previously had to be adapted for this new format and in some cases completely redone.
