SCAMSTERS
Scamsters is a two-player split-screen co-op game in which a human / mouse duo must work collaboratively to heist a cheese museum and escape with the big cheese. Players must complete tasks, do quick time events, and avoid security guards whilst navigating a dimly lit cheese museum to access the vault and steal the cheese.
GAMEPLAY
Players start out in the menu screen. After starting the game, they are met with a character selection screen, followed by an interactive map which can be used to plan a route through the museum.
The duo must find complete tasks, find keys, dodge lasers and detection from cameras & guards, and use disguises in order to find the cheese and steal it. The stealth bar at the top indicates whether the players have been detected by guards.
Each player has their own unique abilities which when combined, allow the duo to assist each other in the heist. The rat is able to climb through air vents, and chew wires to disable security cameras. This allows the human player to go undetected by the guards for a short period of time.
The human player can assist the rat by opening doors, as the rat is too small to do this alone. The human must obtain the key to the vault which is made possible by the rats use of wire chewing, as well as the human player’s unique ability to equip disguises to confuse security guards and remain undetected.
The game features dynamic music which seamlessly increases and decreases in intensity depending on the current gameplay situation. Based on the stealth meter which indicates the suspicion level of the guards, the music will either become more intense, fast paced and panicked, or alternatively, calm, quiet, and closer to ambient background noise.
development
Scamsters was developed as part of a University group project, in which the entire class of approximately 90 people simulated a real game development studio. Sub-groups of roughly 6-8 people were formed, and each group had to pitch their own game, and present their progress each week to the rest of the “game studio”.
Our group, Team Scamsters, chose to develop our game in Unity. Our group consisted of Game Development students such as myself, as well as Game Design students, and VFX students. The VFX members worked mainly with software called Houdini to create particle effects and animations, as well as the complex vent system which was imported into Unity.
Weekly sprints were tracked using Jira, where each person was assigned tasks to complete, and then progress was shared in weekly team meetings and presentations.
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