Project made for the Ubisoft Game Lab Competition 2023
Theme: Arcade
8 Members
Role: Team Leader
Date: February 2023 – April 2023 (10 weeks)
Tools: Unreal Engine 5.1, Perforce, Trello
After School is a third-person shooter game that can be played solo or in split-screen co-op. The player plays as a kid running around in a huge playground, shooting waves of enemies with a water gun and accumulating as high a score as possible.
The game was developed over the course of 10 weeks as a submission to the 2023 Ubisoft Game Lab Competition under the theme ‘Arcade’. It also had to respect the following constraints :
- An online scoreboard
- At least one destruction mechanic and one creation mechanic
- At least one interactive gravity modulation element
- Two concept art elements
The game was showcased all day at the Ubisoft Montreal studio on April 13th, 2023, along with many other games participating in the competition. Many people got to play and enjoy our game, as well as jury members.
My Contribution
My role in this project was to be a team leader. I was both responsible for the complete design of the game and the producer of the team of 7 programmers.
Producer
As producer, I was responsible for assigning tasks to each of the programmers. Over the 10 weeks, we are talking about almost 400 tickets. It was my duty to be constantly aware of the evolution of the project and to know to which programmer I could assign which task. I tried to be a very available support to the team and to predict the risks for the project by making sure that heavy features were not introduced at the end of the development.
I also acted as a link between the team and the Ubisoft mentors and managed all the playtests. In total, I sent 7 versions to different friends and relatives to get their feedback on the game. I also contacted a playtest school to get feedback from them. I was then in charge of prioritizing the new tasks.
Game Design
I was the sole designer from the beginning of the project. I was in charge of many balancing tasks such as :
- The difficulty of the waves of enemies and their statistics.
- The management of water and its functioning.
- The balancing of the different bonuses and creations of the player.
- The design of the economy of the cardboards (cost and drop of the enemies)
I took special care on the cardboard economy design and the balancing of the waves to ensure a slow start to the difficulty before it really ramps up like many arcade games.
The difficulty is the same if you are playing single or in co-op so it was very important to make sure the game felt challenging and fun for everyone.
Level Design
We wanted to communicate strong emotions about childhood, especially the nostalgia of not having responsibilities after school, of being able to play and have fun without having to worry about anything else. Also, we didn’t plan to add any narrative mechanics like dialogues. So, I used the level design to convey that emotion.
I created a classroom from scratch with many references to the game. I also created the entire map making sure to have many points of interest to encourage the player to move around and to have several optimal strategies.
UI Design
Finally, I also supervised the game’s UI. Working with Laurianna, our only artist and UI programmer, we made sure that the game’s UI was connected to the theme and that it formed a cohesive whole with the rest of the game.
- Clavel Clémence
- Ferra Laurianna
- Girard Jean-Félix
- Lapointe Ann-Laurie
- Lou Lori
- McRea Patrick
- Medina Enzo
- Mora Hugo
Green Bear
I can’t think of a better feeling for a developer than to see players leave with a big smile on their face. Thanks to all the players, to our friends who playtested the game, to our mentors and to Ubisoft for this contest.
