summary

The focus of this game is that a big creature has to catch a small creature running through tunnels that both of them are dynamically creating as they move. The small creature, in turn, has to collect five pieces of food. If the small creature finds all the pieces, an exit portal appears and the small creature escapes. The creatures may also encounter explosives, which they may choose to avoid or pick up, but which will explode if run over.

At the beginning of the game, the big creature, the small creature, the food and explosives, are randomly positioned. The creatures don't know the location of each other, so, the big creature has to dig tunnels to find the small creature, and the small creature has to dig tunnels to find the pieces of food, while avoiding being catched by the big creature.

While chasing, they may choose either to continue to dig tunnels or to go through the tunnels already created as the game develops. Each creature can see its own location and the tunnels they have dug on a sonar map.

This game can be played by two players. Each player has to select either big creature or small creature. This game should be played on two computers connected by a network.

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game elements

characters

A big, walking creature.

A small crawling creature.

objects/mechanisms

Rocks that disappear when the characters move through space (they dig). Chambers are created every time the game is launched. As more tunnels are created, the creatures may start falling on the lower ones as they dig. more...

items

Sonar: Each creature has a sonar map where the user can see the immediate surrounding area with the tunnels its character has dug and the relative position of the food. The big creature can see when the small creature has picked up food because it dissappears from its sonar.

Food: When the small creatures collects 5 pieces of food, the portal appears.

Explosives: They can be picked up and dropped. The characters can use them strategically. The small creature may collect them and drop them when chased to delay the big creature.The big creature may position them around the food to delay the small creature. Each character can pick up to three explosives at a given time.

Accesible elements: an exit portal for the small creature to escape.

story

In a planet located in a distant galaxy, two underground creatures live. One is a small, weak, but smart creature, and the other one is a big, powerful, but dumb creature. They feed on the most abundant underground plant in the planet. They used to be good friends, but now, due to a temperature drop for unknow cause, the number of plants has significantly decreased and they have to compete for survival. The big creature has gone insane and has decided to catch the small creature and eat it. Having realized this, the small creature is trying to escape and survive, digging tunnels to find food and eventually an exit.

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game mechanics

Users can choose to be the big or the small creature.

The shift key is used to move forward and the arrow keys are used to change direction.

If there is no tunnel in front of the character, moving forward automatically makes it dig.

If a character is already in a tunnel, it can dig by either colliding with the side walls, or by pressing the space bar to dig down.

If the characters hit the boundary of the space, they bounce and rotate 180 degrees (in the case of the side boundary) and half of the character's inclination degree (in the case of the top and bottom boundaries).

Both characters can pick up bombs by using the control key when the object to be picked is near.

Bombs explode after the characters pass near them.

The small creature automatically picks up food when close enough.

The big creature cannot pick up food.

The big creature catches the small creature automatically when close enough.

The portal appears when the fifth piece of food is found by the small creature.

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visual effects

textures

A texture map is drawn that has many rocks so one rocks looks as many.

Rocks are rotated and scaled randomly to simulate many out of one. A rock in the shape of a polygonated bean changes appearance when rotated. We do not use diffuse light, so the rock divisions blend with the rock faces.

lighting

We use two light sources. One is a directional light from top and another one is a spot light emitting to the front of the character. It looks like a headlight of a miner.

Fog is used to give a sense of depth, and hide the end of the drawn rings. Actually we can't draw a long straight tunnel since we requires too many rocks, so we don't draw parts of a tunnel further than 20 units from a character. It makes an end of a tunnel appear too distinct. By introducing fog effect (black color fog), we can see a much softer end of the tunnel that looks just like darkness.

To learn how the tunnels are drawn, go here

map

We made a sonar to enhance the navigation of the user. The sonar is made of thin lines and no background, so it does not affect the visibility of the environment. Bombs were added to prevent the user from focusing too much on the sonar, among other things.

characters

The shapes of the characters are very smooth, to contrast with the pattern and sharp lines of the rocks. The big creature walks vertically swinging to the sides while the small creature crawls horizontally, contracting and expanding. Both creatures have breathing pace.

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sound effects

  1. Background music.
  2. Digging: a metal drill for which the pitch was lowered works as crumbling rocks.
  3. Running: fireworks accelerated and backwards work for little paws scratching the rocks.
  4. Falling: a hissing cat.
  5. Hitting the boundary of the space: synthesizer boing.
  6. Finding food: synthesizer bells.
  7. Explosive alarm: overlayed synthesizer.
  8. Picking up explosives: synthesizer drum.
  9. Dropping explosives: synthesizer drum.
  10. Finding the portal: synthesizer arp.
  11. Catching of the small creature: overlayed synthesizer.