Mechanics Design & Coding Development

Written by Misty

GameLoop

Start Menu
The player begins at the Start Menu and selects Start to begin the game.

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Opening
An Opening sequence introduces the background and provides basic gameplay instructions to guide the player.

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Clearing Scene
The player enters the first playable area: the Clearing.
Here, the player encounters a Peacock and can interact with it to trigger the first task.

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Peacock Minigame
The player must hold down the mouse button to wipe away the dust on the peacock, revealing its original vibrant colours.

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Return to the Clearing
After completing the minigame, the player returns to the Clearing scene.
A Peacock Soul Fragment appears. Interacting with it will:

Unlock the Peacock entry in the Notebook
Unlock the next area

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Lake Scene
The player travels to the Lake. In this area, the player:

Collect resources
Feed the deer
Interact with the deer after feeding it
Get the Deer Soul Fragment
Unlock the Deer entry in the Notebook.

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Ending

Game over, exit or back to the start menu.

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Task Allocation

Here are the expected playable core mechanics in two scenes of this game.

	Clearing Scene	Lake Scene
Start Menu & Instruction	Misty developed	NA
Item Collection	NA	Misty developed
Animal Interaction	Misty developed	Misty developed
Animal Puzzle	Ollie developed	NA
Get Soulfragement	Misty developed	Misty developed
Unlock Notebook Page	Misty developed	Misty developed
Ending	NA	Misty developed

Meanwhile, I’m also in charge of adjusting art assets, animation, the UI system, and character movement. etc

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Collaboration with Team members

All team members and I update each other on our progress during our weekly group discussions and communicate in real time via the Slack channel.

with Technical Designer Ollie

I created a GitHub repository and invited Ollie to join.
I was responsible for developing the main game, and he was in charge of the peacock minigame.
We initially worked on separate branches. Once he had fully developed the minigame, he merged it into my branch, and we coordinated the integration.

“Zer046” is my account.

with Artists, Swan and Lettie

Initially, I helped allocate art tasks to Swan and Lettie and suggested they coordinate their art styles by searching for references together.
Once they had completed the art assets they were responsible for, they would send me the original PNG files via email or the Slack channel.
After downloading them, I imported them into the engine and refined the scenes and animations. I then send them screenshots or videos of the refined work in the engine to seek their feedback on visual improvements.
I would also raise feedback to their work, such as ‘the map colours are too dark’, ‘this asset doesn’t blend well with the others’ or ‘the animation transitions aren’t smooth’, and discuss potential solutions with them.

with World Designer Yulia

At first, Yulia wasn’t entirely clear about her responsibilities and wasn’t used to communicating with the team via Slack. So I started by chatting with her in Chinese on WeChat to explain what she needed to do for the group.

This included researching the world-building, developing the character profiles, and crafting the opening narrative.

After that, we also discussed the sound effect:

Sound, Light and Effects – Misty Zhang

As other team members mentioned that she only messaged me privately, meaning the rest of us couldn’t keep track of her progress, I suggested she post all questions and updates to the Slack channel.

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First Playtest Development

The first playtesting session was scheduled for Week 5 of development. During the preparation phase in the first four weeks, my main goal was to implement all core gameplay mechanics in the first scene (Clearing) that we intended to evaluate in this initial test.

My development blog for the first playtest are in the following links:

Coding Development: Scene & Camera

Coding Development: Player Character

Coding Development: UI

Coding Development: Animal Auto Navigation

Coding Development: Animation

Coding Development: Item System

This stage prioritised creating a playable vertical slice that could demonstrate the complete gameplay loop.

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First Playtest Outcome

I was able to include a complete game loop of the core mechanics in this playtest. However, there were some tech issues still existing which disturbed the player’s experience.

Here is the feedback we collected during the playtest and the form I organised later, to help myself clarify the issue, the way to improve, and the expected outcome:

First Playtest – 26.02.2026 – Soul Keeper

Based on this, I started to refine mechanics and interaction logic in Week 6:

First Playtest Refinement – Misty Zhang

Coding Development: Draggable Item – Misty Zhang

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