THE STORY
Deep within the forest lies the small and quaint town of Salientia, populated by an abundance of cute frogs and townsfolk who just so happen to be talking animals. The town is closed off from the rest of the world and no human has ever stepped foot into it... Until one day, you arrive at its doorstep.
You’re an aspiring photographer and frog enthusiast who has found their way into this whimsical town, and you decide to make your mark as a photographer by taking pictures of their frogs. You might even befriend them!
HOW TO PLAY
From Github, download the Unity project and run the .exe file under the Builds folder to start playing! OR, play on itch.io!
In each level, you must try to reach the minimum score to win. Earn points by taking pictures of frogs (and only frogs). You also have a limited number of film for each level. The level will end once you run out of film. As the levels progress, the minimum score and number of film will increase, and you'll notice the frogs will start to speed up! Furthermore, you might start to run into some enemies. If you take a picture of them, you'll lose points, so be careful!
Move your camera around the screen using the WASD keys. To focus your camera, hold down on LEFT SHIFT. While focused, you can snap a shot by pressing SPACE!
While focused, you'll notice a cross-hair in the center of the frame. This is important! The closer the frog is to the center of the frame, the more points you'll earn. A PERFECT shot will get you 160 points. GOOD shots get you 120 points. And OK shots get you 100 points. If there is no frog in the frame, you'll get 0 points.
BACKGROUND
This game was created as the final project of my game design course. We were assigned a list of professions and had to create a game based around that. I chose “photography”, and came up with the idea of a game where you take pictures of cute animals, similar to Pokemon Snap. Since I enjoy drawing cute things in my free time, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to implement my artwork into the game. In the end, I decided on just working with frogs, since it would be easier to manage only one type of animal rather than a wide variety. Plus, I am a big fan of frogs, which helped motivate me to complete the game.
CHALLENGES & ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Since I was working solo on this project, I had to maintain a good work ethic in order to be productive and meet my deadlines on time. I ran into many bugs during the process of development; however, I managed to overcome them and find innovative ways to solve the problem.
I designed all of the sprites and visual aspects of the game by myself, which took a long time, but I am proud of the results and how it enhances the aesthetic of my game. I am especially proud of my use of coroutines and camera mechanics that I implemented: when taking a photo, the screen quickly flashes to mimic a camera’s flash. Then, the game takes a screenshot and pastes it onto the screen in the form of a photograph, to give the illusion that the player took a photo.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Although I am very proud of the final product, and believe it was a great accomplishment to create a polished and functioning game independently in just a few months, I do have some regrets. My original plan for this game included a lot more features, which I unfortunately had to make cuts to as they were not feasible for the amount of time I had. Some examples include: more levels, more characters and dialog, more "gimmicks" to increase level difficulty, and a shop menu to purchase upgrades. While Frogtography is perfectly enjoyable as it is, it would be nice to implement these extra features in the future.
Overall, I am happy with what I accomplished, and my game received extremely positive reception from my classmates, TAs, and professors.
EXTRA INFO
Made in Unity. All sprites, backgrounds, UI elements and additional 2D assets were hand drawn by me. I do not own any of the music used in this game.
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