In Sliptime Sleuth, play as a P.I. with a twist. In this time-traveling puzzle game, utilize your handy gadget to take on a variety of contract work, slipping through time in order to earn an honest buck.
Contributions
- Puzzle design and creation to balance difficulty, feasibility and engagement
- Lighting and background interpolation
- Conducted playtests and debugged core issues upon launching.
For Sliptime Sleuth I worked with Sunburst Studios, who had created the basis of the game starting in early 2019. I was asked to join in February 2020 and aid in finishing the game for a June 2020 deadline. Sunburst Studios originally consisted of five members, and later consisted of seven.
The game had been in development on and off for a year, so there was legacy code. When I joined only one level was complete, and there was a goal of four levels by June 2020. I took on the level creation of the game and ended up having a heavy hand in the design and creation of level two, and was a lead designers of level three and four of the game. Creating levels for Sliptime Sleuth was a puzzle in itself! To narratively and functionally work, the player needed to follow clues and objects in different timelines, changing the past, and seeing the results in the future. The cause and effect relationships would be changing the state of the world in different timelines. Through dialogue, lighting and interactables, the player needed enough direction to make it to the next clue, without the clues seeming heavy-handed. This balance was delicate and easily broken. In this project, coding the solution was the easy part, while the nature of the solution itself took long discussion, deliberation and playtesting. The design of the levels had to be respectful of the artists and 3D modeler's time as well; objects could not just materialize as the design needed it. With such limited time, this was quite task! Once the levels were designed I implemented them with another developer in a pair-programming style.
Once the levels were created, I programmed scripts to add environmental effects such as lightning, a directional light rotation and color interpolation, a background color interpolation and a material change system based off of player progress. Upon launching to Steam, there were a few fatal bugs due to changes to legacy code, and I went in and fixed them to make patches to the final build. Working on Sliptime Sleuth was an invaluable experience, exposing me to working in teams, the importance of communication and working under pressure.