RECIPIENT OF ALFRED P. SLOAN GRANT FOR GAMES 2020-2021

Metamorphosis is a 2D narrative-driven game where you play as a magical undersea creature who must consume poisonous contaminants and avoid death from toxin accumulation in order to restore their home. Throughout the game, players will experience empathy for creatures trapped by the contaminants that have invaded their home, and gratification when they successfully save them and help bring life back to the ocean.

Game Details

• Genre: Narrative, Adventure, Platformer

• Platform: PC and Mac

• Game Engine: Unity

My contributions

• Designed core mechanics to reflect the director’s narrative creative vision - a character that performs acts of self sacrifice to protect their marine home.

• Created paper level layout and designed 7 puzzles revolving around the core mechanics.

• Implemented level in Unity using tile palettes.

• Maintained design documents and project macro to help communicate with other teams on what assets need to be created, and features built.

• Core game loop: explore, consume goo, release energy, revive environment and save creatures, continue exploring. Player helps creatures and the environment at the cost of their own in-game health.

• Main mechanic inspired by real life events of marine animals being harmed upon consuming pollution:

  • Eat: consume the goo that’s killing the energy coral. Consuming the goo allows the energy coral to bestow energy on the player.

  • Goo Mode: consuming goo makes the player enter goo mode where their health decreases over time until the environment is restored.

  • Release: release the energy on a Coral Activator to restore the surrounding environment.