An Attempt To Fly

wasd, up down left right, or controller!

If using a keyboard setup, use ijkl to control the camera, and space to jump

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Sean-ORourke/An-Attempt-To-Fly

It’s difficult to navigate a forest not made for Yu.

Since freshman year of college, I planned to make a game that would delve into flying mechanics in platforming, while also speaking to personal themes via the framing device of the woodlands, and their creatures. Senior year comes along, with my DNID English Capstone class, and it’s finally time to create the game that would become An Attempt to Fly.

The class structured itself for me to think differently about my game. Instead of thinking of it in a vacuum, for myself – to instead open my ideas up into and ground my work in the broader context of players, pre-existing media, and historical research. I found inspiration in the Open Doors for the Handicapped ULS Archive. Particularly, in the way that different mobility aids were marketed (FashionAble), and the historical reports of what benefits those that are handicapped, and how the accommodations are often misaligned (THE IMPACT OF SECTION 504). In our case studies of other media in the field we were entering into, I found inspiration in How to Train Your Dragon and A Short Hike. How to Train Your Dragon was inspiring narratively for its focus on disability and overcoming it in creative ways. I was inspired by A Short Hike for its level design, controller compatibility, and movement system. With these inspirations, I was able to iterate upon my concept to more fully flesh out the narrative with fictional and historical aspects, and improve the movement design of my game.

My development continued, now with the goal to inspire others to keep the creativity and drive to keep finding unique ways through their situations. Just like I had seen in fiction with How to Train Your Dragon and in history with Open Doors for the Handicapped.

Early development focused on the movement system and engaging level design. Separately, a portion of the narrative was written. User feedback was vital in iterating upon these. Narratively, the largest point of confusion from readers was “You” as the main character’s name and a reference to the reader simultaneously. Through workshopping, I landed upon “Yu” – so the word could better communicate as a name. Initially, the camera was fixed in one position behind the player. Through user testing, seeing players struggle to navigate around a 3D tree when the camera was only facing one direction, it was clear users needed a movable camera. In user testing after implementing the first version of camera controls, I received feedback to shift camera controls from a simple rotational model because orbiting in the y axis can be confusing. Constraining the Y-axis movement to just a tad away from above, and just a tad away from below the character model assisted in players’ understanding of the game’s controls and the level itself – assisting players to get lost less often.

More design iterations focused on the level design itself. The main challenge for this vertical slice of the game was to climb a tree. This tree started out using planes – which players found very confusing during playthroughs, as one could not see the planes from their underside. Additionally, in this type of game it was not intuitive to players that they could jump through a platform. I made the decision that I did not want the ability to jump through platforms in this world. As a result, I made use of 3D objects instead of planes – modeling the tree trunk and branches myself. Additionally, I brought platforms closer together to make scaling the tree more possible, and varied the shape of platforms to create cerebral challenges in platforming.

Ultimately, my game at the showcase garnered a lot of positive attention for its story, expansive world, and platforming challenge. However, if I want this game to achieve its goal of inspiring others to keep trying in their own lives, more revisions of the game are needed. I project that adding in the rest of the narrative would help in this – as the story could speak to perseverance in Yu’s life.

An Attempt to Fly is a culmination of my DNID experiences, particularly in the department of games. This project flexed my research, critical study, writing, programming, and creative muscles – all key aspects of DNID. It also served to showcase my video game art skills, which I have been building over the course of my college career. This game serves well as a capstone as it shows my ability to create a game from start to finish – the writing, designing, production, art, and programming. This capstone speaks well to my versatility and ability to get larger projects done.

An Attempt to Fly fits in with the DNID Capstone class values in its end-of-semester form largely by showcasing the risks taken to create a better experience for the player-user. This iteration includes many asked-for changes: a movable camera with cleaned-up vertical movement, a main tree platforming challenge with complex platforms, and the added challenge of leaves blocking a player’s view at some angles. The class itself enforced testing, synthesizing, reflecting upon feedback, and iterating our projects. Without these aspects, my project would not have gotten to where it is now. While not directly visible in the project – throughout this class my favorite value to exemplify was seeking and sharing knowledge. I very much appreciated getting advice from my peers, and helping my peers where I could. This aided the trajectory of all projects in this class – but, and even more favorably in my own eyes, it fostered a community within class. My favorite times in class were seeing people’s projects and sharing information about them. I will never forget those memories. The last quality my end-of-semester version of An Attempt to Fly exemplifies is wellbeing, because its author did not die via the ceiling tile (yet).