About the Project
As a student at Hampshire College I am required to complete a year long project known as a Division III. Dracula: On Robot Island (D:ORI) is a playable demo featuring nearly all the mechanics that will appear in the full game. Because the purpose of the project was to show off my technical capabilities; the game doesn’t have much content. That being said, I’ve laid the groundwork for expansion and post graduation I will add substantially more content.
Dracula: On Robot Island is a pared down version of a much more ambitious concept, Dracula: Rising (D:R). An excerpt of the design document for that project is viewable here.
Themes of Development
To make the game feel like it took place in a real world I designed it to remain consistent with the players actions. If a player opened a chest, it remained open. When the player kills an enemy, it remains dead. If the player exits a level on the right side of the stage, you will re-enter that level on the right side. With each new mechanic that I introduced I was always thinking of consistency. This meant creating multiple data storage systems that handled all sorts of game elements. Whenever I introduced a mechanic to the game, it would almost always be accompanied by a system to remember and manage any relevant information.
Themes of the Game
Dracula: On Robot Island has two major themes in its story and gameplay. Exploration and discovery, and dark environmentalism. D:ORI is intentionally vague in order to force the player to explore and engage with the world in order to find your own path. While this can be frustrating or difficult for players who just want to play a game, it’s an important choice that ties into the meta narrative of the Game. D:ORI takes place within an expanded universe and Dracula, as part of that universe, is unfamiliar with recent changes to the world. As the player explores and discovers the world, so too does Dracula.
I’m also using the game as a tool to plant seeds for other projects. Who are Victor and Petr? Why is Dracula so surprised to hear of a Continent? What was the world like when Dracula last walked it? These are questions that I hope my players ask because I’m not going to answer them in this game. If they want to know the full story, they will have to explore and discover my other works.
The second theme of dark environmentalism is less important to the greater narrative of my world but still important to Dracula: On Robot Island. The robots on the titular Robot Island pose a threat to magic and the ecosystem of the world, but that isn’t their fault. Their power source isn’t sustainable, but the robots themselves aren’t evil. Many of them are normal civilians, with family, friends, jobs, and hobbies. Despite being the protagonist, Dracula isn’t a good person. He isn’t trying to save the world because he wants to save it and protect life upon it, he’s just trying to maintain the status quo for his own benefit. If magic and magical life cease to exist, so too does Dracula’s minions. D:ORI is a story about a bad character doing bad things to good people to create a good outcome.
The Technical Stuff
Despite being visually simple, under the hood it is the most complex project I have built thus far. Dracula: On Robot Island is full of ‘firsts’ for me. It’s the first game with an explorable map, a map/level switching system, experience, upgradable stats, dialogue, inventory, and many more. I didn’t just implement these systems and move on either, the mechanics of the game have more depth than the player would realize by experiencing the game superficially. For just one example, let’s look at the game’s combat. From the player’s perspective, they can attack an enemy until it’s dead.
From the game’s perspective, the enemy exists in a natural state until it becomes suspicious of Dracula. This occurs when Dracula attacks a robot or if Dracula lingers too close for too long. Once this occurs, the enemy will send out an alert to activate any nearby defense systems and notify any nearby robots; who in turn activate the same alert sequence until every entity in range that can be alerted has been alerted. Next, the defense systems target Dracula and the game sets a value for the robots internal ‘courage’ variable. If the number ends up being less than 0.7, the enemy will run away. However, if the courage value is greater than 0.7, the enemy will charge at Dracula. A higher courage variable will result in a higher XP yield.
I was constantly pushing myself while creating this game. While bringing systems like combat to levels of complexity I had never before attempted, I also learned tons of new techniques and added mechanics I was too scared or confused to try building in the past. It is impossible to express in words how much more I know now than I did when I started.
The standout feature of the game is the Enemy Upgrade System. Every other feature I added was included to add to the game, but the game was made for this feature. After killing and consuming an enemy, Dracula is capable of taking those abilities for himself. In the upgrades menu, you can assign these enemy skills to one of four buttons.
If you have any feedback regarding the project, I would love to hear it!
Following the completion of a Division III project, students compose a retrospective essay to reflect upon their Division III experience and the work they did. This is my contribution.