Design
Enemy Design
There will be 3 enemies to populate the level you go through, each with unique attacks to keep gameplay varied and players engaged. The enemys will fill their respective niece, one is a slow enemy and is relatively weak, being slow yet needing to close the gap fully to damage the player, inspired by how Zombies operate in Minecraft (2011). And similar to how they work in Minecraft (2011), despite their weakness they will vastly populate each area to constantly apply pressure to the player and punish them for not paying attention. Another enemy will act more as a turret, slowly moving towards the player whilst shooting highly damaging projectiles. The plan for the turret was initially to shoot a laser beam, however, this would require vastly more work and a lot more consideration on how to properly choreograph the attack and make it readable, challenging and fair to the player, hench the idea being scaled back to a generic bullet. The final enemy will run around quickly leaving an environmental hazard beside the player, similar to how stink bombs from Fortnite(2017) operate, causing them to take damage over time. Requiring players to take notice of their environment and adapt around it constantly creates a more adaptive and engaging gameplay loop. Having different enemy types opens up many possibilities for designing distinct levels to provide variety in gameplay but also encourages players to build their own strategy (Bajaj, 2021), and only having 3 enemies gives players time to develop strategies on how to defeat each enemy and utilising this knowledge as the level design gets progressively harder.
When designing the Zombie enemy, a mood board was put together seen in Figure 3. The zombie was meant to look corrupted, as though a virus had overtaken the host. This led to many early sketches of the design leaning more into a more plant-based corruption, Seen in Figure 4 ,as though it was syphoning the host. Personally, the purple flower and legs concepts both stood out, however, it felt very overkill for what was supposed to be a beginner enemy with no special functionality. Instead of completely scrapping the design, the choice was made to split the design in two, as seen in Figures 5 and 6. Dubbed “Felled” and “Screecher” respectively. As for the projectile enemy, the vision was always for it to be a floating eye with a ring around it, inspired by more biblically accurate angels, however, there is no clear consensus surrounding how it’ll look, especially as these designs will have to be worked into a voxel art-style which will prove difficult considering the circular nature of the eyes design. As for now, there are a few ideas for how the eye will look, Seen in Figure 7, with the personal favourite being the bottom right design, though this is subject to change later in development.
Figure 3 - Pinterest mood board for Zombie design, found at:
https://uk.pinterest.com/jesssdiamond/the-corrupted/
Figure 4 - Early enemy sketches
Figure 5 - Design for the Felled enemies
Figure 6 - Design for the Screecher enemies
Figure 7 - Potential design for the Eyes of Satan enemies
Level design
Figure 1 - GMTK Dev Log that outlines level design
Since the level design is an important part of this project, I’d want each room of the level to be unique and designed surrounding the enemies populating them. Utilizing a design concept used by Mark Brown of the Game Makers Toolkit(2023) in which level elements were laid out on a matrix to assist with puzzle design, as seen in Figure 1. The same concept was utilized when creating a general layout for the level, as seen in Figure 2. Even without the room-specific designs, this overhead sketch of the level with the enemies assigned provides an incredibly helpful insight into how to design each room further. It also clearly marks out where each easter-egg will be hidden, whether by finding hidden keys or completing secret objectives to open the secret doors. As for the regular doors, they will open upon defeating each enemy within a respective room, this is to halt players from being able to run through to the end without engaging with any of the obstacles. Each hallway between rooms will go upwards, subtly guiding the player with level design, this design choice can also be used to misdirect players when hiding secrets throughout the level.
Figure 2 - Level layout sketch
Further delving into the design of levels, Minecraft's (2011) nether inspires many of the visuals of the world. Using elements from the nether fortresses, bastions, and the various biomes, seen in Figure 14. The rooms will be designed as though they exist within a world, to have the player feel as though they are navigating an interconnected structure with purpose rather than a series of unrelated chambers. A few design elements, such as mineshaft scaffolding and torches, seen in Figure 15, will give some structure and detail to each room. In opposition to this, the door is designed to stand out from the world, hence the contrasting blue, seen in Figure 16. Creating a clear visual language and highlighting important gameplay element from the rest of the scene. (Barclay, 2016). See Figure 17 for a early look at level design.
Figure 14 - Minecraft nether
Figure 15 - Design elements
Figure 16 - Door Design
Figure 17 - Level design concept
Character design
As for the main character you play, despite the 1st person perspective of the game, a character design is important as there are plans for the heads-up display to feature character art similar to Doom(1993), see the HUD concept in Figure 8, alongside the character being featured in the menu screen. Not much time was spent deciding on the look as a perfect design already existed, my twin, Alexander Lidster, Seen in Figure 9. They have an athletic that perfectly fits the feeling and aura that the character will emanate, and to further honour and reference them, the character will be named Alexander after them. Combined with a purple-rimmed toga to display a royal angel look, with purple commonly associated with royalty (Andrews, 2023), and some tattoos and combat wear to add further detail to the design, a final model was put together as seen in Figure 10. The rush into the voxel model is due to a lack of anatomy drawing skills, and with a the very strong vision of the design, it was considerably easier to visualise and iterate on the design whilst modelling it. Additionally, this gave time to test out the voxel software, MagicaVoxel, before diving further into the visual development.
Figure 8 - HUD Concept Art
Figure 9 - Alexander Lidster reference photos
Figure 10 - Alex visuals
menu screen
​The menu went through many iterations of design, as seen in Figure 11, ultimately settling on the final design seen in Figure 12. The idea is to act as a home base for the character, with the room getting more decorated with items found throughout gameplay. This is where the save system will be implemented, saving your progress whenever you exit the game. 4 of the trophies are found via secrets hidden around the level, each referencing previous game projects, and a special 5th plaque for finding all four. Alongside that, the player is awarded a wall mount based on a select number of enemies defeated, and after achieving all 3 they are awarded a plaque. This will incentivise repeated playthroughs of the game.
Figure 11 - Menu concepts
Figure 12 - Final menu design
A more subtle part of this project is story, with this game taking place as a prequel to my previous project, Match Made in Heaven, hence the more biblical themes and designs. This story will be told more loosely through dialogue from the easter egg character found throughout the game, which can be achieved quite easily through recycling code from a previous project, and a more direct biography system which will more directly explain back stories of the main character, the enemies and the overall lore, Seen in Figure 13. Initially, this archive system was going to be linked to the save system, revealing more information as you progress, however overcomplicating a simple idea could disrupt development and even call for the removal of this feature and, in turn, less time allocated to more important features.
Figure 13 - Archive concept
secrets
As mentioned, the discovery of the hidden secrets as part of the progression is a major part of the idea behind this project. On a personal note, this final project marks the end of a 2-year college course, and I want to be able to celebrate my creations and progress since the beginning, hence why the 4 secret collectables will be based on my past game projects. Since the previous major project, Match Made in Heaven, already has a character design and reference sheet seen in Figure 20, only 3 designs need to be made.
Figure 20 - Marigold design (By Hart (2024) and Gulliver (2024) )
The first game, Astroid Assault sees the player destroying asteroids and weavings out of danger. The character design takes heavy inspiration from Samus (Metroid: Zero Mission, 2004) without her suit equipped to create a sleek sci-fi look along with a racecar mask, to display the character's skilled driving ability through visuals and keeping the character mysterious. The colour pallet is parallel to the ship design of Astroid Assault, further referencing the game, with the final reference sheet seen in Figure 21.
Figure 21 - "The Pilot" character reference sheet
Clean Up Crew is a game centred around climate research. The design takes much inspiration from typical anime character designs, especially designs from One Piece (1998). The original idea was for the character to be more serious but due to Clean Up Crew being a game for a younger audience more child-like design elements were included, such as the patch work on the trousers inspired by Otama from One Piece (2019). This also further develops the resourcefulness of a nature enthusiast through visual design, as seen in Figure 22.
Figure 22 - "Iacchus" character reference sheet
Combat Chicken is a design concept by my mum, Kathryn Lidster, pitched every time the discussion of game design came up. This developed into a running joke that I wished to pay homage to by finally including the ever-elusive Combat Chicken. Described as “Rambo but a chicken, with a bazooka that goes “BABAWK” every time it's fired.” by Lidster (2025), a design was put together and approved, as seen in Figure 23.
Figure 23 - "Combat Chicken" character reference sheet
Audio design
Audio design has always been neglected or left very late in development in past projects. This is contrary to how important sound design is in video games, furthering immersion and providing players with clear feedback (Lins, 2013). So, for this project, more thought was given to potential sound effects. Since this project is intended to emulate the more nostalgic themes and design of older video games, the project will utilise 8-bit sound effects. Whilst there are many preexisting 8-bit audio libraries, this project intends to have as much original content as possible to demonstrate diverse creative and technical talent. Music and sound effects have never been part of the personal skill set, however, there are many tools out there that provide a free entry-level way to create 8-bit sound effects and music, such as ChipTone (SFBGames, 2021) or Chrome Music Lab (Google, 2016). Ultimately, some time will need to be spent experimenting with possible software to decide which will be best for developing the music for the project.