Billy Marsh
Designer - He/Him
In Egg heist you play as a disorganized heist team, breaking into a museum currently under renovations to steal a renowned Fabergé egg. This was one of the first games I made as a solo developer and I'm still really happy with how it turned out. The objective of this project was to learn how to use the Fungus plugin to create a narrative based experience. I didn't want to make a visual novel as they're not my type of games, but I used Fungus and created a lot of my own assets and scripts and combined them to make a 3D heist vertical slice with a subtle story experienced by the player meanwhile.
All of the assets in this project bar the Fungus plugin for Unity and sound effects are made by me, including a simple modular kit, level scripting, and all the art assets.
Egg Heist
Screenshot of gameplay from Egg Heist
Screenshot of gameplay from Egg Heist
Screenshot of gameplay from Egg Heist
Screenshot of gameplay from Egg Heist
What I got up to for Egg Heist
For Egg Heist I wanted to make all of the assets myself as at this time I was still reasonably new to Unity, so I challenged myself to do as much as possible and get a good grasp for the software. For this I created both 2D and 3D art assets, created the core gameplay mechanics, designed the level with a custom-made modular kit and handled narrative design.
Asset Creation
The Modular kit was a series of walls, floors, ceilings and pillars/fillers with different textures. all the models were made within the same dimensions so they would all fit together in unity when using the grid snapping feature.
To create the assets for Egg Heist I used a couple software's, the two main ones being blender for 3D models and HEAVYPAINT for texturing, I also occasionally used a few like illustrator and photoshop for some of the sprites. The process for this was pretty simple, I would model a prop in blender, texture it using a painting I made in HEAVYPAINT then export these ready to use. Using HEAVYPAINT was a really great idea for this project as I think it really helped pull the 2D and 3D art together.
A collection of the HEAVYPAINT textures used in Egg Heist.
A collection of the HEAVYPAINT textures used in Egg Heist.
A collection of the HEAVYPAINT textures used in Egg Heist.
A collection of the HEAVYPAINT textures used in Egg Heist.
Gameplay Mechanics
Egg heist has a few unique mechanics that can affect the way you complete the experience. I added a fuse box puzzle which disables all the traps should the player complete it but also puts the player on a time limit, there's also items you can use to block the guard in his office as well as a screwdriver you can find to access the vents. These little things make the gameplay feel pretty varied and enjoyable.
The player starts in the bottom right of the map and environmental effectors slowly lead them in the correct direction. I did this through using unique lighting colours, locked doors and planned room layouts to help nudge the player. I'm really happy with how I referenced museum layouts when creating this map as I feel it makes the experience so much more immersive when playing, I think the player catches onto where they are quickly with just the map because of this.
Level Design
The level for Egg Heist is set in a museum so when it came to designing it I wanted to reference simple layouts of museums and design the larger level, being the walls and playscape, around these references. Then to make the vertical slice challenging for the player I added smaller level effectors like locked doors and cameras within this museum in a way that makes the player consider their moves.
When hovering over the image to the left you'll see how the map was constructed with a modular kit, each square represents a floor tile, which the walls around fit into provided they're on the same grid.
Narrative Design
I wanted to tell the story for Egg Heist in the background and have the player focus more on the puzzles, so I decided to use the environment to tell a lot of it. There are a lot of 3D models that justify the setting and location, others give a little bit of context to this setting as well. Most of the location explains itself through this but I also wanted to write some little bits of dialogue to really nail the context in. In parts of the slice the player will contact their partner over a walkie talkie and ask questions about the museum in a way that a person in that situation actually might as opposed to the classic 'what is this place?' which makes the dialogue feel a lot less on the nose and more natural.
