21/04/26 – 21/07/26 (Week 1 - Week 14)
Game Development - Final Compilation & Reflection
Cindy Noverin / 0376409
Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylors University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Instruction
Progress work
Game Design Document
Final Work
Feedback
Reflection
Progress
Week 1
Module brief and team forming, We started brainstorming on the
idea for the game we wanted to develop
For this module, we were required to create a game using
PlayCanvas. We decided to form a group of four
members:
1.Cindy Noverin (0376409) – Team Leader
2.Aquela Zefanya Soares (0374377)
3.Celine Christabelle Patricia (0374872)
4.Jennifer Michelle Hiendrawan (0374682)
For this semester, the theme is about mental health: "Where
healing meets fun."
Story development
After knowing the theme and listening to Ron's briefing, we
began discussing ideas as a team. Initially, we decided to
create a game about Hoarding Disorder. Once we had chosen the
main theme, we continued with brainstorming, conducting
research, and developing the game concept in more detail. The
following is the FigJam link that we used for brainstorming and
drafting several sections of our Game Design Document (GDD)
during Weeks 1–2.
Our initial concept was to create a mental health game that
focused on grief, moving on, and emotional healing. The game
explored how people cope with grief after losing someone they
love by collecting the objects and memories left behind. The
story followed a protagonist grieving the loss of their beloved
dog and blaming their parents for its tragic death, causing them
to isolate themselves from the outside world. One day, a
mysterious white dog appears outside their room and leads them
through a doorway that opens onto a beautiful island instead of
their home. Determined to uncover the truth, the protagonist
begins a journey across the island while gradually learning to
heal from their grief.
Week 2
We continued on brainstorming our idea
Fig 2.1 Figjam brainstorming idea week 1-2
However, from Week 3 onwards, we decided to completely change and redesign our game concept because idea because we feel that the story initial idea was hard to explore, too niche for a mental awareness when all of us does not really have a basic understanding on it, we decided to change the entire story, something that is more relatable to our daily lives.
After several days of discussion, we carefully considered what game theme would be both meaningful and engaging. In the end, we decided to create a game about Anxiety Disorder. This was the first concept after brainstorming our new game idea.
This is the final concept of our game
Fig 2.2 Final game idea
It revolves about a person who is invited by his close friend to
a birthday party at a club. Although he feel uncomfortable about
attending, he is unable to refuse because the invitation comes
from his best friend. As a result, he reluctantly decides to go.
During the party, he suddenly experiences a severe anxiety attack.
Through this game, we aim to raise awareness about anxiety by
allowing players to experience and feel about it, particularly
when it is unexpectedly triggered in crowded social situations.
Below are some of the gameplay mechanics and obstacles that we
plan to develop for our game.
That went from evoria into breathe,
we lost one soldier on our battle here
Week 3
During this week we focused on the development of the
game concept breathe as well as completing the first game
design document draft
for my part, I started with doing character sketch for the
game character and implement the color pallete to match the
game intended artstyle
 |
| character design concept and sketch |
Week 4
We continue on listing down the asset that we n eed to build
and create, and started listing down
the asset list
Week 5
During this week we started adding our asset to play
canvas as well as turning out background into GSplat
while on my part I'm still working on the character
design and expression
Noah the artist's Middle Child
Sarah the artist's favorite child
Week 6
We continues on adding asset to the playcanvas to adjust the camera position and ui design for the game textbox and such, we also decided to introduce a new concept. Since our backgrounds are in 3D, we chose to make them fully 360 degrees, allowing players to freely look around and explore the environment using their cursor. To achieve this, we created the front, back, left, and right sections of each environment and combined them into a seamless 360-degree background. The following shows the progress of it.
the serving face bf (best friend ?)
behold, hands.
Week 7 - Week 8
we all died here
during this week its very hard for us to meet outside of class time since we're focused on our other modules, and such. but while the leader(me) went afk for a whole 3 week the other member still doing GSplat rendering, per files.
Week 9- Week 11
Week 12
we had the heaviest feedback about our project so far and we just decided to start over to a new play canvas file because altering old code and old asset would just make things more complicated, so we did more research on how can we improve the background since we wanted the player to be able to roam around and make it feels less like a visual novel. we considered a layered parallax background, or giving depth to the picture using blender so it looks like a 3d background.
Week 13
We decided to do
most of the
background all over
again by using 3rd
party asset and
assemble them into
one map, specially
for the map and city
street because its
the most that need
improvement because
GSPlat isn’t doing
it for us, we fist
polish separate area
in our own blender
and have an extra
help from our
entertainment design
friend to assemble
the background into
one.
After assembling the
background we put it
inside the
play canvas, which
made most part of
the play canvas lost
texture material so
there are some time
where some of us separated work between restoring
the material and
adding lighting and
coding the player
camera and WASD movement and adding
collision barrier so
player wont have to
go out of bound +
error prevention
on my part I tried to build the environment of the club along with Celine, adjusting the lighting, missing materials and collision, after finishing that I did one quickest scene which is a credit scene and a main menu scene so that at least there's something that can be done quick, then continue helping on making the mechanics.
 |
| lung sweeper |
Then on another day
we continued on
making the mechanics
of the game, adding
dialogue sequences, the
mechanics of the
game like arranging
words and reuse the
lung sweeper from the last play canvas
project file and
develop it further.
and on my part while I was thinking to make a cutscene since lung sweeper is the last part of the game mechanism, so I thought I could do an animated cutscene and have it loop when the user click to a certain line. but turns out play canvas doesn't accept video format so Aquela help me figure out how to insert the video, turns out it would work if we used a WEBM file format so I converted all of my GIF loop into a WEBM format.
Week 14 - Week 15
This week we discussed about things that are
left to do while we focus on our own final
projects for other module,
Week 16
After we finish all of our module, were back
at working on mechanism and the derivables for our project.
for my part I decided to do another cutscene for the final resolution of the game, I animated quite a lot and felt exhausted because its one assignment after another, did it anyway
 |
| all gif draft |
 |
| character design draft |
started listing down derivables and while i'm still animating, Celine helped us with the game design document because on the game she had completed her part of the work, so she started listing down the asset manifest list.
GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT
First Draft
Final Draft
FINAL WORK
Game walkthrough presentation
Play canvas Link
https://playcanv.as/p/qEd6dIE2/
FEEDBACK
Week 2
Idea wise, this is too mild to make it into a hoarding
disorder, can be milden
Still haven't get so much visualization about the story on how
it will go
Narrative wise, there are no unique mechanisms on it
Week 4
For the Overall color scheme its already nice, maybe can make
another Color palette for the normal one
To prevent it to be so visual novel like, using a 3D
background can be great
For the breathing mechanics, can use "microphone" to let users
understand how they control breathing, it would be more
meaningful
Week 7
For the dance floor, the mechanism is messed up because of the
camera position. Change the position and turn off cast shadow,
turn on light map. The splats are too heavy which causes the
game to be quite heavy, make the file less than 1 MB
Week 9
Ron helped us create a script for displaying different
dialogue texts sequentially in PlayCanvas. Using the Display
Sequence script, we can edit the dialogue through the
Properties panel by entering each line into the available text
fields. We can also use Gemini to help generate or modify
scripts when needed. A useful tip is to prompt AI in English,
as it generally produces more accurate results.
We also learned how to use the SuperSplat Editor to crop and
clean up SOG/point cloud assets. Unnecessary points or dots
can be deleted to reduce the asset size, which helps improve
the game's loading time and overall performance.
Week 12
Ron said earlier that if we want to put all the assets in,
don’t put them under the 2D Screen because apparently when we
render the game, the camera will behave differently and it
won’t be responsive. Instead, we need to create an Empty
Entity, then put all the assets underneath it, so basically
group them together.
Also, if we move the assets out from the 2D Screen, some
things will change and need to be adjusted again. Some of the
scripts might also be affected because we’ve been setting
everything up under the 2D Screen this whole time, so some
things will have to be changed.
Week 13
[Still fixing Week 12 feedback]
Week 14
Good progress on the mechanism. Great 3D and 2D approach. Just
a suggestion It would be better to fix the sprite of the 2D
people so it won't be too flat, also the bartender sliding
animation. Ron asked why we changed the Splat idea into a 3D
asset, I answered, it was a very tough discussion with the
whole entire team.
REFLECTION
Experience
Throughout this project, I experienced the process of developing a game from concept development to a playable final product. I was mainly involved in character design, visual development, environment work, animation, and later stages of the game mechanics. The project also allowed me to explore PlayCanvas and learn how different elements such as 3D environments, lighting, cameras, collision, dialogue, and interactive mechanics could be combined into one game. Since our concept and development approach changed several times, I also experienced the challenges of adapting to new ideas and working under limited time. Overall, the project gave me a better understanding of how creative, technical, and teamwork skills are all connected in game development.
Observations
I observed that game development is not a straightforward process, as ideas and technical approaches can change significantly once they are actually implemented. Our game went through several changes, from our initial concept to focusing on anxiety, and later from using GSplat environments to assembling 3D assets when the original approach was not suitable for the final gameplay experience. Feedback also made us realise that some parts of the game were becoming too similar to a visual novel, so we had to improve the environment and allow players to explore more freely. These changes showed me that visual ideas need to be considered together with gameplay, performance, and technical limitations rather than being developed separately.
Findings
From this project, I found that flexibility, communication, and problem-solving are important when working on a game as a team. I learned that feedback and technical limitations can require major changes even when a lot of work has already been completed, and that restarting or changing an approach can sometimes be more effective than continuing to fix an unsuitable foundation. I also found that I am more comfortable contributing through visual design, environment development, and animation, while working with PlayCanvas pushed me to become more involved with the technical side of development. This experience helped me understand that creating an interactive experience requires both creative and technical thinking, and it gave me a clearer idea of the areas I can continue improving in future projects.
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