“OutRoad Fury plunges you into a city invaded by demonic entities, drive your van in search of weapons and resources to destroy the portal to the underworld, all in a metal atmosphere!”
- Genre : Action / Rogue-lite
- Game time : 45 minutes to 10 hours
- Langage : English & French
- Engine : Unreal Engine 5
About the game
OutRoad Fury is a rogue-lite action game made in my final year of Game studies. It’s available for free online on Steam.
Leina is a solo singer trying to get famous into the music business. She performs several concerts in the bars of her hometown, but never manages to break into the business. Leina decides to make a pact with a demon for popularity ! A winged demon named Bezelbouk then appears, holding out a piece of contract in his claws. In a confident voice, he tells her all she has to do is sign to get her audience…
Without looking at the fine print, Leina signs the contract, when suddenly a great portal from the underworld rises over downtown Toxicity ! The demons went and spread chaos, forcing the survivors to barricade themselves in their homes… Leina doesn’t stand still, however, and slams the winged demon against the wall, now obliged to record our protagonist’s every action against his will. Leina then sets off on an adventurous roadtrip to destroy the portal and become the city’s heroine!
Our main inspiration is the game “Death Road to Canada” (2016 – Rocketcat Games, Madgarden).
Study framework
At the end of my studies at Objectif 3D, the Game Designers had to create a game prototype on Unreal Engine 5 using the Blueprint code.
The deadline was one month in total, and included not only the progress of the project, but also an oral presentation of all the game mechanics. The teachers received a total of three game proposals, and then chose the project that best suited the team’s time and size constraints.
Two of the projects submitted were selected, including this one in which the entire graphics team is working on it.
Here are two videos showing the progress of the project:
Blueprint prototype before the presentation
Prototype C++ after the presentation (4 month of production)
My role on the team
I took on the role of Lead Game & Level Designer within the team, the person who came up with the idea for the project and is responsible for the product.
I carried out a number of tasks related to the game design, such as updating documents and one-page documents from the prototype version to the final game, establishing several levels in blockout with an intention provided as accurately as possible, iterating and testing the game elements provided by our prog and passing on our feedback, and finally supervising the project and managing any problems that arose.
Given the great complicity we share in class, I took into account that we’d be spending one last school year together on the same project. One last opportunity to have fun together.
So I made sure that everyone in the team could work on things they liked.
We don’t know what the future holds… but I see this video game as the perfect opportunity for us all to work together on a project where we’re free to express our creativity, and I hope that this aspect is reflected in the final game. 🙂
Principal collaborator
Adrien Jahant, game et level designer, helped me in our tasks. Without his vision and help, the game wouldn’t have become what it is today!
Development method
During the first months of production, my game designer colleague and I experimented with production and communication methods.
We wanted the whole team to be able to work on game elements they liked. That’s why we started by making suggestions to the team to get their opinions on different elements of the game.
The team’s opinion and feedback were essential to us, to encompass everyone’s vision and create a creative experience that appealed to as many people as possible.
We used several tools throughout the production. For communication with the team, we mainly used Discord with its room and role creation system.
For each update to a one-page document, we inform the team by including a link to the PDF, with a textual summary of the main changes. This allows the team to use the summary as a quick reference, or to download the PDF for those members most concerned by the changes to the one-page document.
It’s very difficult to find one aspect of the game that we all love in a uniform way, but over time we agreed on a functional guideline. We worked shoulder to shoulder, and kept each other informed of any changes or problems that arose, with the help of three meetings a week.
Additional objective
In addition to my role, I set myself the goal of devoting free time into making every piece of music in the game in every difficulty, and making a direct link with the Clone Hero community to our game.
This is my way of thanking Paul and Leina, the team’s composer and singer. The only thing we can give in return is maximum notoriety, as these people contribute to the project on a voluntary basis, even though they’re not members of the school !
Images
