Project Blackbird

Project Blackbird is a 2D RPG Platformer game with Pixel Art Style, which is about a young witch, who was attending a magic school but was she was thrown into a different realm by a mysterious stone​. This is her journey, how she travels between these realms to eventually get back to her own world. 

This game is inspired by Ori Series, Harry Potter and Silent Age.

The core mechanic of our game is Realm Switching. Players have to think out of the box, thinking about all  possibilities they can use to solve all the puzzles and proceed to the next level with the help of the smooth parkour mechanics and movements which we have added to the game.

Art

Environment Concept Art

We are recent graduates who initially participated in a GameJam and decided to keep developing on this idea and make it a proper game. We started developing this game in April.

Initial Ideas

Moodboard

StoryBoard

Storyboarding for the first cut scene, With this storyboard we wanted to show the mischievous side of Merle, who is the protagonist of our game.

Initial concepts

Character Concept Art

In crafting our main character Merle, we gave careful consideration to her attire. Purposefully selecting a kimono-inspired attire, we aimed for a balance of grace and mobility, ensuring it allowed her unrestricted movement while preserving a deep cultural resemblance. Additionally, we added a hood to create a sort of mystery. To further enhance her presence and gameplay significance, we made her with a strikingly long, vibrant red scarf, designed to captivate the audience's attention and symbolize its crucial role in the narrative.

Concept Iterations

Final Character Concept Art

Side Characters

Technical Art tools

2D Fluid Simulation

We developed a tool from scratch that generates a custom fluid simulation, allowing our character to interact with it. The tool enables real-time adjustments to the water's appearance, quality, and physics properties, complete with appropriate gizmo visuals.

Realm Preview Tools

Since our game involves around switching between multiple realms (Green and Purple), it can be quite confusing for our Environment Artist and Level Designer to manage all the scene assets. To address this, we developed a tool that previews realm-specific objects, highlighting interactables, danger zones, and other elements. The tool also includes checkboxes and sliders to preview the Green and Purple realms.

Replace Object Tool

We've also developed a simple yet powerful general-purpose tool for replacing assets on the fly, significantly speeding up our workflow. This tool includes options to copy the original asset's scale and rotation to the new assets being replaced

Animation

Design

Level Design

level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Gameplay Mechanics and Attributes

Puzzles:- 

           Realm Switching (Right Click)

           Box moveable in lush but bounceable in dull

           Portals & Portal Activators

           Switches/Levers that open gates

Parkour mechanics:- 

           Vines in Lush realm to climb up

           Sticky ledges in dull realm which we grab onto and then wall jump.

Other mechanics

A Shop known as Statue of Fortune where you can buy extra life and portal activators using collectibles named Fortune Resins that are found across the levels.

Wall Jump ideation

Hover Box force

Background Soundtrack

The Background music for our game was inspired by games like Minecraft and Assassins Creed II. 

Narrative 

Overview

Our story takes place in a fantasy world driven by magic and has a past history which remains a mystery to many of the people living there.

Similar to any other fantasy setting our world has 5 different villages which are dominated by one family.

The Academy is the heart of these 5 villages as it produces one of the best sorcerers and sorceresses that protect the 5 main villages from any kind of threat. As this world also possess dark magic wielder’s as well as have a past history of being attacked by other worldly rifts.

Main Character

As our world has 5 different villages, many people come from different parts of these regions to become the best sorcerer and our character is one of them.

The Academy has an entry criteria where all the students entering the academy have to showcase some kind of specialty and then the grand master decides who gets in and who doesn't. This happens once every year, our character had something special about him but he was not aware of it. Our character has a mysterious back story . He lost his parents at a young age and was adopted by one of the local’s who nurtured his growth. So he was raised in a very normal family who were not aware of magic and other such techniques.

Character Motivation

As our main character started growing up and learning things he realized he wanted a shot at the academy . After his trial at the academy everyone saw that our main character couldn't do any of the magic that the others could do or even do it well. Even after a bad trial, surprisingly the grandmaster saw something special in him and therefore he receieved an invitaiton to the academy. His peer’s were extremely conflicted and wanted him out . Due to this the social status of our character wasn’t that great. Many of the students were part of the elite magic wielding famalies and were destined to become protector’s of the 5 villages. Whereas our character had a mysterious past and as he grew up he was also told by his parents that he was adopted. That's what also led our character to give his best and try entering the academy.

World Setting

The 5 regions are named Celestria, Sylvanwood, Starhaven, Emberhold,and Crystalia.

Crystalia is where the academy exists and is surrounded by elite families.

Our character is from sylvanwood which is the least prosperous and is the smallest region compared to the others. The history of sylvanwood suggests that they haven't produced any sorcerers and no one has ever got into the academy from this village.

Celestria is a fairly prosperous village and sends a lot of people to the academy and then comes Starhaven and Emberhold.

Every village has an elite family that governs and protects their villages except sylvanwood which is protected by the senior mages from the academy because there are people in sylvanwood who do not use any kind of magic compared to the other villages and the people don't wish to be under the protection of any kind of elite family member and want freedom in the way they live and progress.

The elite family of celestria has faced a lot of rift attacks in the past, as they have most of the riches and resources. The Family that operates in celestria is the strongest among all families. They have some kind of outerworldly connection due to which they face rift attacks.

Plot

All the families are still the governing bodies of their village except Celestria which has come under the protection of the academy.

Why did this happen?

The family consisted of 4 members: the leader, his wife, son and daughter.

The last rift attack resulted in them losing 3 member’s out of which only the last son remained and is currently governing the village along with the help of the academy.

These events have a strong connection to our character. Fast Forward to where our story starts that will mostly be after our MC starts studying at the academy.

[Ending]

After the mc completes the playable levels the wisp will lead the mc to the source i.e. the exit to the real world. There will be a concluding dialogue exchange between the two of them stating the possibility of a sequel as our character learned a lot about the realms as well as her dads past. The game will end as soon as the player passes through the portal that will take her back to the over-world.

User Experience and Play Testing

We conducted some Gameplay testing and got a lot of feedback for game