Kitsune Rush
Team
Chelsea Jennifer Irawan, Para Upton, Harry Shiu, Elom Paradis
Contribution
Project Manager, Level Designer, Developer
Kitsune Rush is a 2D side-scrolling shooter platformer game where players engage in combat against waves of enemies while progressing forward. Developed using Unity, it offers couch co-op functionality, allowing multiple players to join using controllers or keyboards. Drawing inspiration from Cyberpunk 2077, Kitsune Rush pits players against a nefarious corporation, culminating in a showdown with a boss at each level's end. The game comprises three distinct levels, concluding with players facing off against each other. Central to its design is the balance between supporting fellow players and engaging in competitive battles at the conclusion of each stage, ensuring a dynamic and strategic gameplay experience.
Initial Development
In our initial proposal, our design idea originated from the game Cyberpunk 2077. We were aiming for Sci-fi aesthetics as it was trending during the time of development.
We initially wanted to create a co-op game where players are only encouraged to cooperate with each other to win, but we were inspired by another game called Castle Crashers. It emphasized the need for cooperation but also allowed the players to battle each other at the end of every level. Thus, we decided this is the direction we would take.
Kitsune Rush Concept Art
Initial platform design and adding passable platform
Issues & Solutions
Due to my multiple roles in this project, I encountered various issues that I would individually breakdown.
Project Manager
As a project manager, the main issue that I had was to set up a timeline that would adjust to everyone’s schedule. We would regularly have conflicting schedules amongst ourselves due to taking multiple different classes. A weekly meeting is important as I wanted to make sure we would be able to uphold the standard that we decided on by the deadline. The solution is to set a day in the week for everyone to meet up and discuss our progress. Furthermore, I also helped setting up a task manager (ClickUp) in order to track the tasks.
Developer
As a developer, initially, I was not familiar with C# nor Unity. Because this was my first project using the software, I had to adjust to the learning curve. Thankfully, our lead developer decided to do the pair programming method where I would be able to learn and help debug the game as the project went on. I was also able to implement previous programming logics that I have learned such as object-oriented programming (OOP), and enumerate.
Level Designer
Finally, as a level designer, one of the main issues that I encountered was deciding the platform’s placement. We would like to create a game that ramps up its difficulty to balance out the equipment gained by the player. To solve this, I created a platform that allows the player to travel in between. I also adjusted the numbers of enemies in each platform to correspond to the difficulty as we wanted to ensure that the players are capable of clearing the sections if they cooperate with other players.
Kitsune Rush level 3 design with enemies in placements
Results
We managed to iron out the mechanics and debug the game before the deadline. The game was regarded as one of the best complex games in class due to our cooperative and competitive gameplay. If there’s any future implementation, we would like to allow the player to play this game online.
Gameplay Trailer
