Egypt Fever
Egypt Fever is a text-adventure game made in Alan, a free tool for making games of this genre.
Embark on a journey where a mans need to go to the loo results in an incredible adventure through the pyramids of Egypt.
As you solve puzzles and enjoy the quirky humour of Egypt Fever the plot takes an unexpected turn and nothing you see can any longer be trusted.
Specification:
- School project: 8 weeks(50%)
- Level editor: Alan
- Engine: Alan
- Team size: 9
- 2 Level Designers
- 3 Artists
- 4 Programmers
My contributions:
- Level design
- Writing text descriptions
- Mission design
- Sound design
- Bug finding
Tools:
- Alan
- Adobe Photoshop
The gameplay
In the game Egypt Fever you start out outside of your grandfathers old home. He has been missing for some time and you are there to search for any clues as to where he has disappeared to.
The game is a puzzle game with some easy puzzles and some that are a bit more challenging with multiple steps.
To navigate around the game you input strings of text such as 'take matches', 'examine drawer' or 'use key with door'.
We decided to make the game isometric and in order for the player to move from room to room we added a type of compass which highlights in what directions you can exit the room you're currently in.
Upon entering a new room both a description and a drawing of the it is presented to the player.
In the description any interactable objects are highlighted so that the player can progress relatively quickly through the game and not get stuck.
I designed the first are to be a sort of tutorial for the player. The first thing the player has to do is learn to move which is carefully explained. He then has to find a key to open a door and gets a hint on how to solve the puzzle. The puzzles keep increasing in difficulty in a similar fashion throughout the rest of the game.
About three quarters into the game the player is faced with a puzzle which I designed to be the greatest challenge of all.
It consists of multiple puzzles that spans several rooms. They have to be completed in a certain order to finally activate a hidden staircase.
Design and pipeline
Creating a text-adventure game was very interesting and gave me a lot of time to create engaging and fun puzzles. To design the puzzles I borrowed a book about Egypt of a friend and sat down with pen and paper.
When I was happy with the layout I used my tablet and photoshop to create a document of the layout.
I then sent it to the other members of the group so that the graphical artists could draw the rooms and the programmers could build the rooms in the editor.
Lastly, I got to try the puzzle out in the game and if needed, I could give feedback to my team on how to make it work as I had planned.
The design that I'm most proud of is of a puzzled where the player enters a room with three staffs of different color.
There are three rooms to enter from it and in each one is a puzzle that has to be solved.
Once a room has been completed, mirrors in that room are rotated to reflect light of a certain color through a hole in the wall. It then hits the staff of corresponding color and once all staffs have been activated a spiral staircase erupts out of the floor, allowing the player to further progerss through the game.
It was a fun project to work with as I got the chance to be really creative with the puzzles and take my time making them as interesting as possible.
Screenshots
