oophok studio

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1705880/4_Months_of_You/

Some memories should be left in the past.

A first-person psychological horror game where you explore a slow-paced atmospheric world with graphics inspired by the PS1 era.

Explore every corner of the environment to find and collect key items

Manage your inventory space

Complete puzzles to progress deeper into the depths

Always remain calm, otherwise who knows what could come after you

Don't forget to breath

Prototype exploring 3d platformer mechanics and level design. A lot of vertically to motivate long jump and wall jump mechanics.

level 1 perspective and top view

level 1 greybox

MAP ID: LSQNMR9H

Map subverting some of DOOM’s mechanics and adapting them into a map with encounters, progression, bosses and gameplay/level design heavily inspired by Dark Souls and Bloodborne. - Progression system : kill demons to collect their souls. spend souls to upgrade specific aspects of your character or unlock new equipments / weapons. get further in the map. repeat. - Estus flask that heals for 40% of max health. Can be replenished in an altar. - Stamina system tied to movement speed. - Every single enemy and asset is hand placed to create interesting encounters - Learn how to melee since there aren’t enough bullets to kill everything - Leaderboard system based on performance & how fast things are achieved (speedrun friendly) - Hard. PREPARE TO DIE

Encounters are setup so enemies are only spawned when they need to (triggered by specific conditions) and when spawned, patrol a very specific position/area that uses the space around them to create interesting challenges to the player.

Specific enemy types have specific patrol paths to create interesting encounter possibilities.

Lighting and visual elements are used to direct the player’s eye to specific parts of the environment. In the example above, to a wall that is actually a secret door hiding an upgrade inside.

Small glimpse of “under the hood” systems created to support the map’s combat and progression designs.

Offer souls in the Bonfire to replenish lost lives.

Spend souls to upgrade the character or unlock new weapons and items.

Hidden areas that require getting past platforming sections and traps.

Custom geo arena for Boss fight 2.

Prototype exploring movement, item collection and management, basic combat, and level design.

Starting area is a playground to learn the movement mechanics and distances (sprinting, jumping, climbing). Center building allows player to see elements on top of other building motivating them to investigate areas they couldn’t see from the ground level. An environment that gives players a taste of what to expect.

Zone of Lacryma is a story driven vertical shmup in which you fly through 11 levels to discover the dark secrets of New Heaven. Want to get your Highscore on the leaderboards? Chain kills to get combos while maintaining your charge bar so you can keep blasting away. Want to Speedrun? Find the best routes in every level so you can avoid conflict and turbo non-stop to the end. Upgrades let you customize the Prototype so it fits your playstyle. Zone of Lacryma too Hard for you? Press the brake button and slow everything down.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/496540/Zone_of_Lacryma/

Game Design

There are 2 different intended ways to play Zone of Lacryma - one is to go for the highest high-score, and the other to finish levels as fast as possible. Below I talk about some of the mechanics, how they interact with each other, and how they influence these 2 ways of playing. Ship mechanics

These are the basic mechanics in Zone of Lacryma that are controlled by the player’s input. Most interact with charge energy (only resource in ZoL) in ways to create a balance and avoid an ideal way of playing:

Shooting - Each shot spends charge energy. It also decreases screen scroll speed slightly based on the current weapon level.

Turbo - Charge energy is slowly recovered while using turbo. Doubles the speed of screen scroll.

Charge Bomb - All charge energy can be spent to generate an explosion around the ship that destroys almost everything in about 70% of the screen.

Charge Shield - All charge energy can be spent to generate a shield around the ship (if a shield doesn’t already exist) that will block 1 hit.

Brake - No relation to the charge energy. Slows down the ship movement and screen scroll speed by 50%.

Game Systems

Combo - A multiplier of how many enemies were killed in a small period of time. The combo meter (period of time were the player needs to kill a new enemy) gets shorter with higher multipliers. When using turbo the combo meter is slowed down based on upgrades. Higher combos increase the score per kill and, when the combo ends, charge energy is recovered based on the multiplier number. Combo also increases weapon level when reaching multipliers 5, 15 and 25.

Scroll Speed - How fast the screen scrolls (moves from top to bottom) constantly moving the player forward. The speed can be doubled when using turbo (making the game harder), halved when using brake (making the game easier), and reduced based on the “shooting recoil” (speedrunning modifier).

Ship Upgrades - Score is converted into upgrade points at the end of each level. Players can customize their gameplay by upgrading from 5 different options; shooting speed, charge threshold, turbo charge recover, max weapon level, and combo meter.

shooting speed - reduces the time between shots. Makes it easier to destroy things but spends more energy per second. The increase in shots will also increase the recoil ship slow down.

charge threshold - reduces the minimum amount of charge required for Charge Bomb and Charge Shield. As the default if the players has between 90-100 charge, they can activate charge related abilities. Upgrading this makes it easier for players to use these abilities multiple times.

turbo charge recover - increase the amount of charge per second of turbo. Upgrading this will recover charge faster while not affecting turbo speed.

max weapon level - increases the maximum weapon level possible. As default the ship will automatically go to weapon level 1 when the player is in a combo of 5+. Upgrading this will allow the weapon level to increase again when reaching a combo of 15+ and finally at 25+. Increased weapon level does more damage and shoots more bullets but more charge energy is spent per shot.

combo meter - how fast player needs to kill an enemy before the combo ends. Upgrading this will increase the amount of time available between kills. The combo meter is also affected during turbo, where it slows down by half.

The core gameplay loop is structured around a risk reward relation between the ship movement and shooting. Since shooting spends energy, the player will have to use the turbo to recover it, otherwise they might end up without energy which might put them in a dangerous situation. This basic structure motivates players to either play more aggressively by turbo-ing as much as possible so they can keep shooting stuff, or managing their energy resource by balancing moments of shooting with moments of turbo-ing. Players won’t have an easy way out so they will have to risk themselves eventually to beat the levels. 

For more advanced players, the combo system (which will require good understanding and control of the movement + shooting relation) and ship upgrades can keep them pushing the gameplay to the limit. For more casual players, the brake let’s them slow down things a bit so they can keep control of complicated situations while the upgrade system will allow them to make the game even easier at the cost of time and score.

Level Design

All 11 levels are designed to really test player’s movement abilities. They also can be beat using turbo 100% of the way which allows for completely different routes in levels since some are impossible to do while in turbo. Combined with the possibility to slow down the movement using the brake and ship slow down based on bullet recoil, players will have completely different time results, allowing for players to speedrun Zone of Lacryma.

Early level in the game - teaches basic movement at the start with very few enemies in a limited space. 1/3 in, the player’s focus is shifted from navigating the level to fighting enemies with the level’s space opening up completely and adding more enemies. Halfway and 2/3 in, the player is reminded of the ship’s movement with environment gates.

“Tutorial” level in the game - displays most enemies in a structured and repetitive way so the player can better focus on going for combos. 2/3 in, the player’s skill is tested with finer movement and more aggressive enemies.

Mid level in the game – first half introduces big moving environmental hazards and new enemies in a safer open space. Second half tests player’s skills by making the environment tighter, adding minor multiple paths possibilities, demanding finer movement and better combat.

Late level in the game – first half introduces new enemies in a safer open space. Second half tests player’s skills by making the environment tighter, giving them multiple paths to take, demanding much finer movement and asking them to manage multiple enemy patters at once.

Seed Project is a multiplayer puzzle prototype where players cooperate using different input methods (traditional gamepad and leap motion) to evoke the powers of nature and help keep the forest alive. A forest spirit that has to complete it’s mission by getting a newborn seed to its destination, and the forest guardian that will do anything possible to help.

2D shooter prototype inspired by the old “bullet hell” shooters. Started out as a 2 week project so I could take a break from the main game I was working on. After all the feedback I got, I decided to turn it into something more polished which ended becoming Zone of Lacryma. You can play the prototype in your browser (with leaderboards): Scirra Arcade Kongregate

Steam Store Link itch.io Store Link

The Guilt and the Shadow is a “short story exploration game” about the past, death, illness and the thin line between life and insanity. A 2D puzzle platformer inspired by the old point and click games.

Level Design

Ruins

Forest

A game by Frederico Machuca and Luiz Rodolfo Annes. With music by MELVIN, code by Allan Sebben Shuck and character animations by Valdez Araujo. On june 2015 a prologue called TGATS - First Day was released. I’ts a new piece of the story and completely free. Download it free on itch.io