In the first year of vocational school, we needed to get a two-month internship to apply what we learned in school. This project was made during our internship with Odysseus-larp 2024. We needed to create a two-player puzzle game for engineers. One player would be in a radioactive engine, taking constant damage, so the game couldn’t be too long. Our objective was 10-15 minutes. We were also told that we could not connect the game to the internet, so online multiplayer was off-limits.

First Week

We took inspiration from “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes”. We thought of a game where we control a micro-robot and send it to fix a spaceship. Player 2 (P2) will have the map and will tell Player 1 (P1) where to go, as well as control the cooling. P1 will move the robot by typing commands on the terminal. 

Second and Third Weeks

After completing the basic plan, we started with paper prototyping. We played with the paper for some time and then started making a prototype in Adobe XD. At this point, we weren’t sure what the UI would look like. We took some inspiration from the existing Odysseus UI. This is what we came up with in about two weeks. You can see our old cooling panel here, which we just added in the same panel as frequency and map, as well as the frequency puzzle that we eventually dropped.

Fourth Week

We divided the work. I was in charge of the login system; Bean was working on the cooling system, and Mr. Streamer was developing the P1 interface. In the first week, I made a basic working login prototype in Unity and tried to add a loading screen. For now, I added a temporary frequency video in P2. Mr. Streamer started developing the P1 interface, and Bean started working on the cooling system.

Fifth Week

I made 10 maps and started creating a dictionary that would contain information on the correct paths (BAD IDEA) and added an area code that is connected to the map so P1 and P2 can play together. Even though the game isn’t connected to the internet, with the area code, we can know where they are and work together independently. I made a random map/area code chooser in the P2 scene, and Mr. Streamer added area code confirmation in the P1 scene and refined the P1 interface further.

Sixth Week

I made a new system to move the player. The old one was supposed to work by looking up paths in the dictionary. The new system moves the player on the map; if the player touches the white part, you lose the game. Mr. Bean finished the cooling system. Mr. Streamer redesigned the P1 UI and made the text move up and be removed from the scene after the are outside of the visible screen.

Seventh Week

I fixed and improved the login system. I also made 25 more maps, bringing the total to 35 maps. I also needed to make a prefab version of each map, which took a little longer.

Eighth and Ninth Weeks

We were at Odysseus-larp and spent this time polishing and fixing bugs (there were a lot of bugs 🥲). Our game also got upgraded with Cherry on Top, so we were told to connect our game to the backend. This was fun to learn how to do, as it was the first time I have connected any games to a backend or worked with an API. (IT WAS NOT FUN TO FIX ALL THAT BUGSSSS 😭😭)