Game Designer
Functional
ROLE
Solo Developer
DESCRIPTION
Functional is a first-person narrative game where the player, a repair robot, explores a post-battle war zone in order to heal fallen attack robots.
What does it mean to take a side? If someone needed help, but they were sent to hurt you, would you still help them? One small robot, trying to deliver hope, has to answer these questions.
Duration
October 2017 to December 2017
Engine
Unity
PLATFORM
PC
Overview
Functional is a solo project that I created in about two months using the Unity Engine. This project was created mostly as a UX project, but has a lot of narrative design in it as well. Most of the narrative is told through environmental storytelling, but there is some dialogue in it as well.
Narrative Design
Functional is a first-person narrative game where the player traverses a war-torn area. Throughout this area, the player will find other robots that have fallen or been deactivated. It is their job to revive as many of these robots as they can find. This game takes place in an area where two sides are going to war using robots as soldiers. The player doesn’t play as one of these soldiers, but as a unit designed to go into these areas once the battle has subsided and heal their comrades. Functional takes place after a battle between red and blue robots. The player’s master has tasked them with healing all of the blue robots in the area, but since the player’s only task is to heal fallen robots, couldn’t they heal fallen red robots as well?
Engagement Techniques
Identity
The core of this game is playing the fantasy of being a robot. I wanted to make the player feel outside of themselves and to take up the identity of the robot they are playing. In this game, I wanted the player to not only learn from the change of identity of being a robot but also from their perspective of themselves on the side of this war. I wanted to test if they felt righteous in healing the right side, or if there is no right side in war, and thus they should heal both sides.
Moral
In deciding whether or not to heal robots on the other side, the player is making a moral decision to preserve their own side instead of life itself. To the player, healing robots as a human might seem like nothing, but as a robot, they are sentencing their own kind to death. Not only that, but death in a situation they were made to go through, not one they got to decide for themselves. This increases the player’s engagement in the narrative and the role they play.
Lack of Power
Throughout the environment, the player encounters robots that are damaged in ways they cannot heal. A robot might be needing a new part, but the player isn’t carrying any parts, they can only put back parts that are still usable. Also, the player comes across robots that are damaged beyond the point of repair. This makes the player feel powerless in that there are circumstances where they can’t even complete their primary objective.
Narrative Beats
Intro
The game opens up with a user interface indicating that the player is playing as a robot. When they discover their first repairable robot, they become confused, but looking at the directives given to them from their interface, they are able to figure out how to perform their task of healing robots. While healing more robots, the player finds a transmission indicating to find out that the area they are in is still an active battle zone, though the only robots they have discovered so far are injured and done fighting. This establishes the setting.
First Red Robot
The player comes across an injured robot from the other side for the first time. The player feels confusion as to whether they should heal it or not. Here is where they can start deciding whether they should heal red robots or not. Both the red robot and the blue robot in this area have the same injury, which might leave the player wondering what happened to them. Did they take each other out? Did something else come and hurt them both?
G7843-John
The player runs into the first robot they see that is still functional, a blue robot nicknamed “John.” This robot makes the world feel more alive and active, setting up more of the active battleground setting.
Red Side Transmission Message
The player comes across a transmission from the red side. This strikes a little fear in them hearing from the enemy side. It might make them feel unsafe. The message alludes to the blue side being the first to strike in this war.
First Unrepairable Robot / Last Transmission Messages
The player finds the first robot beyond repair. This disrupts what the player knows about the game thus far and thus makes them feel confused and helpless. After all, they’ve been able to fix every robot they’ve seen up until now. Next to it, they find the last transmissions in the game. The red side seems vengeful against the blue, but the blue side has sent out a message that the war is over. The player can still hear the cries of battle, so all of the robots who are still fighting haven’t received the message yet. Their fighting is for naught.
Red Robot Massacre
As the player tries to scan some robots, their scanner picks up a lot of robots behind some rocks next to them. This comes as a surprise to the player because they were hidden to them. All of these robots are unrepairable red robots, and seeing some much unrepairable damage at once should bring a slight chill up their spine over what horrors caused this.
First Bomb / Entering Active Battle Zone
The player reaches a turning point in the narrative after almost being hit by a bomb. This is the first instance of danger to the player where they were otherwise healing damage instead of taking it. From here on, the player enters a more active battle zone, and this could lead to damage for them. The sounds of battle are the loudest in this area. It also foreshadows bombs as being a danger to worry about. The player moves into the area and comes across an alive robot carrying its friend away from this dangerous zone.
Running Red Robot
The player comes across an alive red robot that runs away as soon as they get close. It is afraid of the player because they are on the opposing side. The player moves forward to chase after it, running through lots of destruction from both sides. It is clear what struck such fear into the red robot. The player chases after the red robot to no avail as it becomes destroyed by another bomb whilst running.
Ending / Being Saved by the Red Side
As the player is walking, they become badly injured by another bomb. Their screen is cracked, and they try to move forward, but their power eventually gives out. The player is stuck and cannot move. Just when they think all is over, they hear a pinging sound in the distance, like the one the player makes when they scan. They discover a red helper bot that comes and heals them. In the end, the player sends data to the blue side about how many robots they saved. Their blue masters refer to the the amount of functional red robots as “X number remains,” which indicates that the blue side still has disdain for the red, despite the war being over.
World Building
The world building of this game is loose, but computer transmission blocks throughout the game do give hints to the state of the world through these two warring sides. It’s indicated that the blue side of this war made the first strike by stealing something of importance from the red side. The red side then retaliated, and the war the player walks in on is started. The player may wonder if they are on the right side of this war, but there isn’t enough info to determine which side is ‘right’. There is, however, enough info to suggest both sides have both caused suffering and suffered themselves.
The two sides of the war treat their robot warriors differently. Red robots don’t have nicknames attached to them, only numbers and one letter. Blue robots, however, have a name after their number. This was done to make blue robots feel more relatable, but it also establishes how each side views their robots. The blue side personifies them, while the red side views them more as objects.
User Experience / User Interface
As a UX project, a lot of attention was taken into account on how to make the player feel like a robot. At first, Bastion from Overwatch was an inspiration for the movement of the player, and I created the walk animation of the player to be almost as if one leg was taller than the other with fast stepping to imitate having piston legs, but this was later changed to imitate moving on wheels, so I made a more subtle bobbing animation.
A lot of attention was taken into the HUD of the game to give the player a more computer-like feeling. There is a screen static to give the feeling of seeing through a computer monitor, and there is scrolling code to make the player feel like processes are constantly running. All of the robots have displays that the player can see when they scan them, but the player can always see their display in the upper left corner of the screen. This display is usually blue, but when the player encounters danger, it changes to red and displays warning messages.
