1. First Impact - Making Of ‘Pipeline’
Ideation:
From the start we wanted to do a game with a Sci-Fi feel to it, we
weren’t decided on what genre it would be, however. (Platform,
shooter, RPG, etc.) I suggested the initial idea of a small alien
escaping from the FBI and trying to return to his spaceship, so with
this idea only, Sam Hayman began to draw some concept designs
whilst Sam McCourt and I began outlining the basic story. We agreed
from the start to have a small, peaceful alien that would not be using
any forms of weapons (so this ruled out the chance of making a
shooter).
Early concepts for Jeremy (on the left), first design for Jeremy with
two colours (on the right). Drawn by Sam H.
Once we had the alien’s basic look and name decided, we focused on
the genre, me and Sam M had come to the conclusion that it would be
best to make a platform game, we took inspiration from games such
as Super Mario Bros and Braid. Sam H’s main inspiration for the
Jeremy’s look came from the character Stitch from the film Lilo &
Stitch, and the character Gizmo from the film Gremlins.
I suggested “First Impact” as a working title, and we decided to stick
with it throughout the entire production of the game.
I was appointed Project Lead, Sam H as the Art Designer, and Sam M
as Lead Programmer.

2. Pre-Production:
Before we began making the game, we began to design assets such as
the laser traps, buttons, and collectables. As they were quite easy to
make, Sam M and I made a lot of these whilst Sam H worked on the
background for the levels, he also designed a concept layout of what
level 2 may look like when it was done, we referred to this quite often
when building the level.
The background design used for
level 1.
Left: The concept for level 2.
Right: The final version of level 2.

3. While Sam M and I the built the alpha version of our game so that the
basic code was already written for the later versions, Sam H began
designing. The first thing he designed was a ‘game in a frame’ cover
the cover was as all old arcade game covers were elaborate and a
completely different thing to the actual game. His game in a frame
showed the FBI agents surrounding this crashed alien and his ship.
Sam then started the designs for Jeremy first using aliens from films
and TV programs.
The design of Jeremy was done with two colour variations, yellow
and blue, the blue proved to be more popular. Sam also designed
various versions of the FBI with square Minecraft styles and then a
hand drawn style, he then had Sam M & I pick a favourite suit colour;
black, blue or grey.
The collectable items were easy enough to do a file document for
level one, a sheep for level two, and three shattered ship part with
glowing orange energy stripes for the unused third level. There was
also the designing of the laser traps used in level one, there several
different designs and then Sam H had the idea to include a warning
sign for those who didn’t read the rules. The warning sign was the
best out of the lot and was chosen by the team for the game.
Sam M stepped away from the programming for a while and designed
the buttons we would use for our menus, while Sam H started
designing the level backgrounds, floors, walls and ladders as well
their placement in the levels of the game which Sam M and I could
use if they didn’t have a better idea for our level maze.

4. Production:
Whilst Sam Hayman continued to work on more art for the game,
Sam M and I began to build level 1, level 1 was a lot more simple at
the beginning and after testing the level we had decided it was too
easy, and added another guard, an automatic laser trap, and
increased the speed the guard fired his gun at.
The process of making the game was the hardest and longest part, we
spent many weeks battling frustrating bugs to get the level working
(once we had these fixed, creating level 2 was a lot easier, and only
took just over a week). Along the way, we added and removed many
elements of the game, such as the death sound effect, after a while we
decided that the noise was too annoying, so we removed it, after
complaints from the Beta Testing, we also turned down the volume of
the laser sound effect.
At one point we also had no main menu or loading screens, so Sam H
& Sam M designed a menu screen and buttons and I made a
soundtrack for it.
Sam McCourt designing the main menu.

5. Post-Production:
As we built the game, we also began to collect a variety of sound
effects for the game, such as laser sounds, buttons, and gunshots. Sam
H also made a few sound effects such as the noise that plays when the
player obtained a collectable, and the death sound effect. I designed a
soundtrack for the main menu and level 1, and Sam Hayman made
the soundtrack for level 2.
Screenshot of the Garage Band file for the level 1 soundtrack.
For the main menu and level one pieces, I took inspiration from
composers such as Sam Hulick and Jack Wall, and their work on the
Mass Effect Trilogy, the soundtrack for those games had the 80s Sci-Fi
that I wanted to emulate in the soundtrack for the main menu and
level 1 of First Impact.
For level 2, we needed a very different soundtrack, as the
environment it was set in was very different. Being as heavily
influenced by Sci-Fi as I am, I knew I would not be able t make a very
good soundtrack for it, so I handed the task to Sam Hayman, who
created a much more up-beat, cheery score.

6. Post-mortem:
While I am very proud of the work the three of us have done for this
game, I do I have two regrets about the game; the first being not able
to have a third level, we had planned from then start to have a three
level structure, (three acts), that were to increase in difficulty. It is
only due to time constraints that we had to cut level 3, it’s not as if we
decided “let’s make a third level now”, we had decided from the
beginning to do so, Sam had made concept art for it and designed the
collectables for the level. The second regret is not having enough
time to squash all the bugs, such as the glitchy ladders, this ties into
my point; not having enough time.
I also wish that we could of found a way to make the game slightly
more innovative, and offer more replayability.
We are still not entirely sure what causes the problem with the
ladders, when Jeremy climbs on a ladder, if the player lets go of the W
key, Jeremy will drop to the bottom of the ladder, we determined this
was something to do with the gravity effect we had in place. We tried
turning gravity off (this caused a variety of glitches, such as Jeremy
flying off screen at one point), making exceptions when he was on the
ladder, and so on, yet the problem persisted.
There was also a conflict of rules about his movement when he
reached the top of the ladder, so having to hold down W and either A
or D to get off the ladder created animation glitches. Problems such
as this could have been fixed if we had more time creating the game.