Brick mais surtout Brack : Caporal Chef (Brick but especially Brack : Master Corporal) is a 2D Beat 'em up designed and produced for the comedians Brick et Brack.
Play as Brack and make his biggest dream come true: Train the incompetent soldiers of the new Army of Quebec to form the strongest army the world has known. You will travel to 3 different destinations across Quebec to train your soldiers in different conditions. First start on the army base at Valcartier, then near the Saint-Laurent River, and finally in the far North.
Your soldiers become increasingly better with levels. Drink beer to help you stay hydrated but fight against the effects of drunkenness! Will you be able to show your soldiers what is TRUE discipline?
Your soldiers become increasingly better with levels. Drink beer to help you stay hydrated but fight against the effects of drunkenness! Will you be able to show your soldiers what is TRUE discipline?
For this project, my roles were designer, AI programmer and team lead.
Design
The design phase lasted 2 months. Along with my first teammate, we used Miro to brainstorm and Notion to write our Game Design Document. Our principal constraints were:
• Design a game that could be conceived in 2 months, in a team of 4
For the full Game design document, click the button below.
• Include references about Quebec (to fit the world of Brick and Brack)
• Include both Brick and Brack as much as possible
You can see a table I made to illustrate the intoxication levels of the player. The more beers Brack drinks, the more he gets drunk and is affected by the alcohol. Such effects are described in this chart.• Include both Brick and Brack as much as possible
For the full Game design document, click the button below.
AI Programming
The first AI I developed were the soldiers. There are two: the New Recruit (in green) and the Experimented soldier (in blue). Each of them can throw punches and kick. The experienced soldier are quicker and stronger than their counterpart and can also block the player's attacks with a 50% random chance.
Each level has a total number of soldiers, divided into two: the lower level containing a bigger proportion of new recruits, whereas the higher level contains more experimented soldiers (because they get better with time). Then, all soldiers of a level are separated in waves, to allow the player to get some breaks. The soldier spawner had to account for all of this and keep track of the soldiers left to send, versus the ones that were already thrown at the player, those that were still alive, and those that were killed.
Block action
Idle
Kick
Punch
Brick piling soldiers
Brick encouraging
Growing piles of soldiers
The third AI on the list is Brick. His role is to encourage Brack during his fight with different lines of dialog, throw beers at him between waves of soldiers and clean-up the mess afterwards, piling the tired soldiers on the side.
The biggest challenge I encountered with this AI was to be able to alternate between the Piling and the Throw Beer phase between the waves. I realized it would only be possible to do one of the two for each wave, and that I wanted a system that would allow me to chose exactly what action would be performed after which wave of soldiers. The Encourage phase happens when the player is fighting soldiers.
Team Lead
I assumed the role of team lead for the production phase of the project. This meant I had create a plan of production, assign tasks to my teammates, check in on the group and make sure our newly added teammates had good directions on the project.
I also created a table to keep track of all the bugs and improvements we had to make, especially after the feedback we received from playtesters.
I also created a table to keep track of all the bugs and improvements we had to make, especially after the feedback we received from playtesters.
It also meant making decisions as to what features of the game we needed to cut because we didn't have the time necessary. The Catapult soldier, the cinematics between each level and some advanced attacks of the player and soldiers were removed from the project. Having only one character artist / animator, it was crucial that I scoped down the project so she could focus on the core artworks needed for the game, and the narration had to be adapted in consequence.
Teammates
François Marie Morin - Designer, Programmer, UI designer
Rachel Boulay - Artist & Animator
Xavier Chouinard - Narrative & Sound designer
Rachel Boulay - Artist & Animator
Xavier Chouinard - Narrative & Sound designer
