Office Rally puts you in control of the average person working for some big, boring company. Some would argue it's worth it though, since they hold the yearly office chair race.
Specification: My Contributions: Tools:
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Studio: Chairing Games
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Student project: 10 weeks
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Engine: In-House
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Team size: 18
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2 Designers
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2 Game Writers
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5 Programmers
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5 Artists
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4 Sound & Music designers
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Game design
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Level design & dressing
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Project management
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Quality Analysis
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Player Testing
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In-House engine Rohan
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Adobe Photoshop
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Microsoft Excel
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Microsoft Word
Game Design
When designing the game, we wanted something that differed from the standard throtlle/break pattern you often see in racing games. For that reason, we came up with the kick-system. This meant that the player had a kick mechanic that sent their character on their way, just like in a real office chair, instead of having a constant speed. Staying true to our own office races, you have to rotate your characters back in the direction you want to go, then kick. After you do, a small cooldown starts to tick down after which is done you can then kick again.
Because of the kick-system, the game could easily get a bit annoying when stuck in small areas with the other players. To solve this we looked at two things: Powerups and Collisions.
We then designed it so that when colliding with another player your character will reach out slighty and nudge them. Just anyone would do when competing on chairs.
For the powerups we brought forth several concepts but stuck with three of them: Coffee, Moldy lunch and Pin box. The Coffee would give the player a speed boost that pushed other players slightly aside based on the sheer force. The Moldy lunch would create a gas cloud that stuck with the player who used it. If another player collided with the cloud their controls would invert for a second. The Pin box allowed players to place a stack of pins on the ground. If any player collided with these, they would be sent spinning.
There are four playable characters in Office Rally. Every character has unique statistics; some are quicker but weaker and vice versa. We wanted to give some choice to players who have a preferred playstyle.
Level Design
Since we worked with an in-house engine that was built from scratch, we didn't have that much time to actually implement the levels, or test them throughroughly. Stressed as they were, they held up quite nice. None of us had that much experience with any 2D-engine, so our UI didn't make it easy for us.
First sketch of Level 3
When working with a larger level, I always tried to implement catch-up powerups. These looked like normal powerups but were always a Coffee (Speedboost). Normally powerups were randomized, but the game became quite boring when there was no way you could catch up to were the action is. I placed them in areas where players would be pushed by the others and lose a large amount of speed and time. This created a funnier session as everyone could keep up the pace with eachother.
Engine view of ground layer 2, highlighting art that stands on the first layer - floor.
Engine view of collision layer