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Keep it Cool, Man
at Cyberevolver_StudiosMade an arcade fast-paced typing game with friend (+ additional musician) and released it on Steam for free. I was responsible for: • Designing and implementing all of the user interface (including animations created through C# using DOTween). • Implementing third-party APIs, • Created and designed game content (like bomb letters, shotgun letters, etc.). • Coding Unity editor tools to speed up development process. • Handling marketing and PR inquires with players, influencers and journalists.
UI Showcase
Devlogs
I decided to make couple devlogs before game release. They describe our inspirations, contain speedarts of making user interface and explain the philosophy behind Keep it Cool, Man:
User Interface
At the beginning, I started with feeling for the game which UI would evoke. I chose fear and fun, though it wasn't 100% fear, more like a surprise. Those two fit perfectly in the sarcasm/irony zone for the story and typing game with apocalyptic asteroid letters for the gameplay:
I thought about the style and first things that came to my mind was funk and sci-fi and the name - Keep it Cool, Man (it's long I know, but still it's catchy and tells the player vibe of the game). It came to my mind while thinking about the health system and it being the temperature of the planet seemed like an interesting concept to me and also I like avoiding the same old boring health bar without story explanation:
As soon as possible I created a color palette to create a consistent and memorable experience. I chose the yellow colour as the main one, because it catches the attention and signals an upcoming warning - fitting the feeling of fear:
With level complete screen I wanted to engage players into playing one more level. For that it required the UI to be immersive and simple and every animation to be seamless (here it shows the transition to the Main Menu, but clicking Next the player would in the same way transition to the next level):
For dialogues I implemented various effects from shaking the screen or avatar (like here it's cellphone) to flexible delay. The background displays the planet that this dialogue is happening on (though I think it could be still improved):
This animated background by the way I programmed using DOTween. I also used Unity Animation Curve to fake vinyl player tonearm movement.
Level collection consists of vinyl discs for each chapter and circles placed onto the disc as levels. The levels also has green or red circles around them indicating if they are locked or unlocked to the player (in this case though, they are all unlocked):
PGA 2021
I was also at the Poznań Game Arena 2021 (one of the biggest video game trade show in Poland) where with my friend we showcased Keep it Cool, Man to thousands of people! It was great having all of these feedback from various people and how they play the game!
