Social Dis-Dancing

Game Trailer: https://youtu.be/zRpOB-_D68Y

Itch.io Link: https://uowmgames.itch.io/social-dis-dancing

This is the first major project I took on in school with my team Popcorn Studios. The assignment called for a set of themes that include carnival, Yin Yang Cycle and collectibles. After a few proposals came up, the concept of Social Dis-Dancing was accepted.

A 2D top-down rhythm stealth game where you play as an extraterrestrial being searching for it's spaceship parts, which is located in a local carnival. With the area is filled with humans, the aliens use it's wrist device to disguise as a human kid temporarily for every 8 moves it makes. But however, the human employees known as carnys, were concerned for trespassing. Players must retrieve the required parts while avoiding the carnys from getting caught, and find it's way to escape and return back to the stars.

The player will have to move to the rhythm of the game in beats. The humans moving around the level have a set walking pattern and a vision range. If a player stays in the vision of a human in human disguise for too long, the suspicion meter in the top will increase. The meter can not be lowered after you leave the vision of the human so players need to plan their route carefully. If a player is within the vision range of a human while in alien form, you are spotted and the game is over. If the suspicion meter is raised to 5, a security guard will spawn and patrol around the map. If you enter the vision range of the security guard in human disguise or alien form, you will be caught and the game is lost. The security guard will despawn after making a full patrol loop around the map.

There are distraction items scattered around a level the player is in. Water bottles can be picked up but only one can be held in your inventory. It can be thrown at an NPC from 2 tiles away, resulting in them losing their vision for a few beats. Each level has a ship part somewhere within the map the player needs to find before heading to a marked exit to complete the level.

The idea of a rhythm action stealth game was created by our design lead Yong Ching. We however received criticism early on by our lecturer for lack of proper communication and preparation of the ideation phase. This hit our design team of 3 hard and Yong Ching and another member deferred, leaving me as the design lead. Through the ideation period I worked with the design team then later the art lead in pulling the game through. I was responsible for level design of the first 3 levels. All 4 levels in the games are featured as different sections of the park. The players playing through the levels follow the narrative of the alien advancing further into the park in search of the spaceship parts.