Set Sail!
Set sail and use the wind to your advantage in this exciting mobile game involving boats and sailing. As you make your way through the Swedish archipelago you encounter dangers like jet skis, ferries and revolving bridges, which can slow you down and maybe even keep you from reaching your destination!
Project length: 4 weeks
Year: 2021
Team size: 5
Engine: Unity
My roles: Programming, Art, Game Design
Pillars
Wind
The wind affects the speed of the boat and the wind direction always affects the sail angle.
Joyful
A happy and positive vibe should influence both the mechanics and the aesthetics.
Challenging
The controls themselves will challenge the player, but so should the increasingly challenging levels.
Archipelago
The Stockholm Archipelago gives the game it's colors, objects and shapes to form the games aesthetics.
Gameplay Design
Character
The character is an old school wooden sailboat. Its goal is to sail through the Stockholm Archipelago to finally reach its port.
Camera
During regular gameplay, the camera will follow the sailboat. The player has control over a slider to zoom in or out. At the start of each level, there's a camera that will include the full level to give the player an overview before they start the level.
Controls
There are two control mechanics. One is the rudder, which controls the boat's rotation. The other one is the sail, which can be rotated 360 degrees around the boat. The correct sail angle to move the boat forward is determined by the boat's angle in relation to the wind. The sail will change color to inform the player on how correct of an angle they have the sail at.
Level Design
I designed the tutorial levels for the game. I made eight tutorial levels, each of which introduced one new concept in terms of adapting the boat and sail angle to different wind angles.
In the first iteration we didn't have these tutorials and we took notice of how many players had a hard time figure out certain things, especially sailing against the wind. This concept was introduced over three of the tutorial levels, with increasing complexity to really ease the players into the concept.
Technical Design
For this game I worked a lot on getting the calculations for the required angles correct. This script takes the current angle of the boat in relation to the wind and returns the optimal angle for the sail in relation to the boat.