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Con Colony

PRIMARY ROLES

-Game Designer 
-Gameplay Designer

-Lead Artist 
-Level Designer
-Environment Artist

SECONDARY ROLES

-UI/UX Designer
-Game Balancer
-Systems Designer 

DESCRIPTION

Con Colony was my Game Design and Development 325 team project. It's a top down dystopian sci-fi shop simulator with a fluctuating in-game economy. Play as a wanderer that fell on hard times and is now stuck in a small clueless colony. Convert your ship into a makeshift shop and sell whatever you can to get by. Undercut, steal, and buyout your competition using your wits and companions. Will you make it big and eventually leave the colony richer than ever before, or fall flat as a business person?

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Worked on the project from concept to final product in both art and design.

• Designed and planned out the core systems, gameplay features, and gameplay loop with the team.

• Designed the map layout, all environment assets, the player shop, all items, the player character, and 80% of all pets.

• Created the unique UI/UX and worked hands on with the team to create assets in an organized manner.

• Designed the in-game economy, shop reaction system, shop progression, and stealing concept with the team.

• Led the art direction as well as game balancing and user experience.

• Worked collaboratively in a small agile style team.

• Developed the central narrative, dialog, and voice acted for Maksim Profit (Friend of the Player Character).

• Documented my design and artistic processes.

• Created the title screen, menus, and some marketing assets.

• Finished Con Colony on time for the fall Stout Game Expo 2022 (SGX) and presented it live at the event.

Game Design

Concept to Final Product

Challenges

The concept of Con Colony was pitched by my classmate and team leader, Garret Brown, at our class's pitch session when picking games to develop. It started as a fantasy shop simulator called "What's Yours Is On Sale" which very closely resembled the game Moonlighter. 

I suggested a dystopian sci-fi theme to move away from Moonlighter and embrace creature collecting as a way to steal items from other shops. From here I took a prominent design role on our small team and worked closely with the team leader to design the gameplay and artwork for the game. By our final product I came up with the name Con Colony and the game really stood out on its own.  


 

In the beginning the game was super close to an already existing game and it was no small feat to make it have its own identity and gameplay style. It took a lot of time designing the mechanics, in-game economy, progression, story, and so on. Making art assets for each element also took a lot of time. Along with being a lead designer I also took on the role of lead artist and was in charge of a vast majority of the game theming and art direction. I hadn't worked on a shop or sci-fi game prior to this project. This led me to do a lot of research to better educate myself on the subject.
 

Scope and Development Time

Challenges

Con Colony is a dystopian sci-fi shop simulator with a fluctuating in-game economy with a total of 100 unique items up for sale. It features a vibrant map with 3 unique shops, an in-depth inventory system, a customizable player shop, a day night cycle with a stealing mechanic using collected creatures, and more. The scope of the game became very ambitious as the concept moved away from its Moonlighter origin. It all was completed and presented at the Stout Game Expo (SGX) in Fall 2022.

 

The time we had to make Con Colony was less than 3 months. We also only had a team of 2 artists and 3 coders to make the game a reality. Given that I took up the role as a lead designer and lead artist. I planned out mechanics and worked hard to make sure art assets and designs were optimized and were done in a way that we could deliver on all parts of the game.

I designed the gameplay, economy, UI/HUD, items, stealing mechanic, environment, player shop, player character, dialog, story, menus, some marketing material, and 80% of all pets. Along with designing these elements, I also created their art assets and hand placed multiple items in engine.

Making a Rewarding Game

Challenges

Con Colony was made to be a fun game about learning and strategy in a economic setting. In Con Colony items don't have set values and prices are found by the player through trying prices out. NPCs give reactions to prices and the player's journal lists items sold previously and how well the price was received. This makes players want to get involved and gives a sense of mystery where players can relax and casually learn, or really get into the economic side and find the right prices for certain items or stock up for future price drops.

Players finding fun ways to make their mark in the game's economy mixed with stealing, pet collection, and shop upgrades made for plenty of ways in which players could make meaningful decisions. 

Making a shop simulator feel fun isn't an easy task for design. From this I learned a lot about price scaling and mechanisms to engage and reward players.

I am a huge fan of of player agency and I wanted the game to feel open so that players can forge their own journey. Decisions had to matter and for that to happen the economy had to be easy to understand while also having mechanics that can reward players with smart decisions.

The idea of learning a market was something we all liked early on and it fit our theme of the player being an outsider. The concept of learning item prices, unlocking upgrades through smart business decisions, and taking risks when needed really unified the game. 

Re-Inventing the Shop Sim Genre

Challenges

Shop simulators as a genre usually feature a core crafting mechanism and classic shop front. Instead I wanted to try something unique. Me and the team leader really liked the idea of the business side of shop simulators which is usually simplified in other games. This lead us to design an in-game changing economy. This along with our method of selling items made the game feel mysterious almost in a similar style to the game Tunic where it makes the player think and rewards smart decisions. By allowing players to buy and steal from other shops and set prices it made for fun and unique gameplay which went hand in hand with our stealing mechanic. By the end each mechanic worked really well together and made for an experience that drew a lot of players in at our live presentation at the fall Stout Game Expo (SGX) 2022.

I myself was never a huge partaker of the shop simulator genre. However, my strengths are in designing gameplay loops and unique experiences. This allowed me to think through some tough design puzzles when making Con Colony with a different mind set.

At first I designed a crafting mechanic which was going to be central to the game and players could collect ingredients to make items to sell. However, I decided that it didn't fit the feel of the game and the the focus should be on buying, selling, and stealing rather than crafting. This was an amazing decision in the long run and it led me to create the player shop upgrades and pet mechanic for stealing items. These mechanics alone made Con Colony feel vastly different from other shop games I have ever played and were fan favorite parts of the game to those who played it.

Gameplay/Systems Design

Challenges

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop of Con Colony is about learning prices, making smart decisions, and taking risks with investments. Each mechanic in Con Colony is based off of spending Credits (the currency in the game). This makes resource management a balancing act. Should you buy up cheaper items and wait? Should you invest in a shop upgrade? Or should you try to steal high tier items at the risk that your companion could get caught. 

I designed Con Colony this way to give players agency and allow them to make each playthrough different. This leads to a lot of strategy, but doesn't take away from the relaxing nature of a shop simulator. 



 

Making a Gameplay loop where players can make so many choices took a lot of time to balance and test. There was always a worry that game mechanics might not feel right next to each other. However, early in development I made it a point to nail down core mechanics. This allowed me time to fine tune them and make assets that unified each mechanic and made the game as a whole feel fun to play for long periods of time. 

Another challenge was designing a fun re-playable shop simulator. From my experience shop simulators can get repetitive and tedious very quickly. Knowing this I made sure that each mechanic required some planning and risk so that each action felt meaningful. During the launch of Con Colony at SGX players got really ingrained in it to the point where each of our laptop stations was booked. One kid in particular tried out the game at the start of SGX and played Con Colony the entire night (This is at a game expo with at least 50 other games). After SGX he even wanted to download the game for himself.

Challenges

Making an In-Game Economy

I designed Con Colony's dynamic economy with my team leader Garret. We both wanted a large market with many items to add to re-playability and to make progression smoother. The in game economy is split into 4 categories: Food, Gear (tools/weapons), Apparel, and Miscellaneous. Within each section was a range of items increasing in price with numerous tags that NPCs might look for. This system allowed for a very fluid progression of item cost and variety while also making the market feel like a real life economy.

Each category had a price tier. Food was the cheapest, then Apparel, then Miscellaneous, and then Gear. There was a unique shop for each category and the Miscellaneous shop is in the player's tablet and was owned by the player character's friend Maksim Profit. He is the main tutorial guy and is also responsible for selling Companions the player could use to steal from other stores.

Selling items is done in a very unique way. Instead of selling tables like Moonlighter or other shop games with no interaction we came up with Kiosks similar to a drive-thru where you place up to 6 items for sale and set the quantity and the prices for each item. NPCs then would enter and line up at kiosks looking over your items for sale to see what they would like to buy. While doing this they give a reaction to each item that helps the player in finding a good price for items. Once an NPC decides what they want to buy they make a purchase and the next NPC in line moves up. The most recent purchase of an item is logged in the player's journal which shows last sold price and the reaction to the price. Kiosks are upgradeable and there can be a maximum of 3 at the highest upgrade.

Coming up with a balanced economy that feels natural was not easy or quick, but it really made Con Colony the game it is today. The dynamic prices made for unique situations and plans. Every day there is a billboard that shows shifts in prices for items going up and down as well as wandering NPCs talking about the economy. This along with buying from other shops made players explore the map and allowed players to form plans and feel immersed.

A tipping system was also implemented to reward players for trying to get near the perfect price. This gave incentive to learning prices and also combated overpricing and underpricing since NPCs were smart enough not to overpay and would buy things very quickly if they were underpriced. 

One challenge was the sheer amount of items. Each category had 25 items in order to create a smooth price gradient in a category. 100 unique items was daunting at first since we had to implement each item and make art for each unique one. However, Garret found a way in Unreal to read our Excel documents and transfer tags and prices for items. This made adding items very modular and greatly sped up the development time of the in-game economy. 

It took a lot of work, but the economy really became the core of Con Colony. There is even a mid to late game transition where NPCs become more picky and certain item tags become more desired. There was more planned for late game at first that would change the economy even more. However, due to a very small amount of development time and the setting of SGX very late game content was cut.

Challenges

Stealing Mechanic

The Stealing mechanic in Con Colony came from the early concept of the game where you hired a guy to steal for your from a small town. As I pitched the sci-fi dystopian theme I suggested changing the guy you hire to a range of Alien creatures. It made the game more child friendly and gave room for making really cool alien designs that players could get attached to. I wanted the ability to name your companions as well since it gave more weight to sending them out to steal and seeing them in your shop and UI only added to the ambiance and continuity of the game. 

There are 13 unique companions and each companion can have 1-10 in 3 skills. Intelligence lessens the chance it will get caught, Strength determines how much it can steal, and Preference is what category of items is it better at stealing. At night the player has the chance to send out one of their companions to seal items they select from a shop. All items not bought from shops that day are available to steal at night. Each item added to steal reduces the percent success rate. If the player succeeds then the items are added the the player's inventory. If the creature fails the creature is sent to the pound at the bottom of the map and requires credits to be bought back.

The stealing mechanic went through a couple ideations. At first there was the idea to add a separate stealth minigame players would do to see if they steal items without getting caught. This was later cut due to our limited development time in favor of a more risk reward style selection.

I really liked the idea of players having an emotional attachment to their creatures and how it is a financial and emotional risk when sending them to steal. It added to the feel of the game. In addition, by having their named companions seen in world and in their menus made it that much more personal when they were caught and put in the pound. 

The stealing mechanic is designed as a risk reward system to get ahead and catch up. It adds a new dynamic to the game and can really add a fun twist to the day to day as a shop owner. It has a lot of strategy and risk which is something I always like. Decisions should matter, but I also didn't want players to feel too bad when they get caught. Therefore, I created the pound mechanic which balances out player currency and lessens the impact of losing a companion while stealing.

Challenges

Guiding Players

Gameplay in Con Colony is player driven. There is a short tutorial in the beginning where Maksim Profit shows the player the basics and tells them that they need to do to raise enough money to fix the ship and leave. However, after that it's in the player's hands. To aid the player NPCs and the billboard nearby talk about economic changes. However, it's in the control of the player for what they want to do. I wanted it to be ok for the player to make mistakes and not be horribly punished by them. It's ok to not know the price of an item, it's ok to fail. 

There are soft guides everywhere in the game. Interactable items and shops even have white outlines that appear when the player approaches them. By giving the player clear access to all the tools at their disposal it shows players that they can forge their own path. Players could decide to only sell food or so on and that would be ok. There are numerous strategies that are viable. There is no race to do things. 

There is a delicate balance in game design between hand holding and throwing the player out of the nest. This is something I really wanted to nail down early on. Giving players a lot of choices can be too much sometimes. Knowing this I made sure the tutorial made the player very aware of core mechanics. This allows for players to be up to speed fairly quickly. It also allows the player to find a direction they want to go. Letting players know about things early on can spark ideas and goals players themselves create. That is why the tutorial is only 1 day long and touches on mechanics players should know. 


 

Level Design

Game Layout

Challenges

The map layout for Con Colony was designed to be in order of progression and spread out enough where time in a day should be devoted to checking shop prices around the colony and purchasing items. The player shop is located in the top left of the map, then next to it is the food shop, lower down is the a apparel shop, and the last and furthest shop is the gear shop. This is done to slightly guide players through progression without hard blocking off areas. 

The map has a central path and signs which help guide players, but players are still free to explore at no cost to them. The map was made to be in scale with everything else asset wise and fit together as a cohesive style. Map scaling was thought out a lot to consider travel time and screen size in order to have a nice view no matter where the player is on the map.


 

Making the game in 2D in a 3D engine like Unreal Engine 4 was not the easiest task. A lot of time was spend in hand placing environment assets and angling them so that the player can be in front and behind them. To do this I used tall custom colliders and angled each environment asset so that it correctly layered with NPCs and the player character. 

I made multiple mock-ups of the level and we even pondered the idea of having interiors of shops. Due to limited time we kept shop interiors to only the player shop. This made it stand out as a location and added to the experience of converting a ship into a shop.





 

Creating a Unique World

Challenges

Dystopian sci-fi can be a lot of things. From this I really leaned into a retro almost cassette futurism style. My main concept of it was inspired by the game Outer Worlds with its vibrant landscapes and colony idea. From there I created my own style for things.


Each shop has a color assigned to it. Food is green. Apparel is purple. Miscellaneous is yellow. Gear is orange. Lastly, the player is cyan/blue. This was done to show importance. Yellow and blue are primary colors while green, purple, and orange are secondary colors. This subconsciously gives players a feeling of importance and is also used in the environment design. Even though the environment is foreign to the player in lore, it has the same color scheme as the player being cyan and orange. This was done to show attachment to the world like they are meant to be there. 

Some foliage and shops have animations to stand out, but not all. This was done to keep the world feeling alive, but not too distracting. All animations are 4 frames long to give a retro feeling like an old Pokémon game. This was also done to fit well with this retro theming of items and Easter eggs hidden in the game relating to old Earth items.


 

Creating a unique Intellectual Property was very fun and also a challenge. Making everything fit together nicely while also making sure the style looked nice alone was important. I had to make many rules for myself to follow art and level design wise. I took a lot of inspiration from alien looking plants to make my assets. Placing them in world was done in a way to highlight the central paths. 

The map was made with main sections being occupied by shops right along the path. This was done to easily show shop locations and give players a sense of direction. large vertical rocks also line the path to further show where the central route is. The layering and angling of these rocks was done to show depth in this 2D game and it really helps to show that when the player and NPCs weave in front and behind them. The path standing out from the grass really contrasts nicely and is done to keep player focus while moving.

Player Shop

Challenges

The player shop is the main attraction in Con Colony. It is the only shop Players and NPCs can enter. It features a fade away exterior to the floor plan. It has the shop part front and center and the player's living area off to the right. At first the shop is full of boxes and clutter. However, through upgrades the ship gets decorations, more kiosks, upgraded kiosks, and access to additional vault storage. There are 3 upgrades and each upgrade has a cost and upgrade tier accessed through the terminal. 

The ship displays the player's current pet and their name on a pet bed. It has a bed to skip to night, and an open sign so the player can open their shop whenever they want. I wanted every upgrade to be shown visually, so as the player upgrades the shop it starts to look nicer and has an impact on gameplay. 

Making a fade a way shop was a little hard, but I figured it out. Most of the challenge came from making a lot of assets to make the ship feel alive as an environment. lights, kiosks, carpets, wall art, furniture, and so on took a lot of time to produce and each interactable item had a highlight as well to show it was interactable. 

All in all it is one of my favorite parts of the game and it was a blast designing every element and seeing it all come together in the end. 
 

Tying Everything Together

Challenges

I Designed a lot of mechanics and created a lot of assets for this game. Making everything feel unified was something I valued greatly. I made style guides, scaling rules, and color guides. This along with making UI and HUD elements that felt grounded to the world greatly helped make this game feel like a colony.

Time was one of the greatest challenges on this project. I knew from the start that this game was a lot to do in 3 months, but I knew we could do it. I managed my time well and put in the extra effort to cross the finish line with a game I am proud of. If we had more time there is a lot I would like to have added or refined, but that is the nature of design. All in all, I really enjoyed working on every part of this game and it taught me a lot about game design, art, and myself as a game designer.

 

Con Colony Poster 2.png

Con Colony Assets

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the live game. Art wise I was responsible for creating the UI/ HUD, Items, Player Shop, Player Character, Main Menu, Environment Assets, The Map, and 80% of the Companions.

More examples of my work on Con Colony can be found on the Con Colony Artwork Page in the Art Gallery shown below. There I walk through my processes and challenges when designing artwork for the game. 

Art Assets

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