Recently published by JamPack, Fossilogical is a single-player cozy 3D puzzle game, where players piece together unique skeletons.
Fossilogical was made in collaboration with Erica Chen and David Song within a month.
I managed our timeline and allocated tasks in response to playtests. On the design side I was responsible for the end of level player grading system and branching narrative paths based on player scores. I also contributed the environmental assets and select UI design.
Level Scoring
No concrete numbers were presented to the player to avoid discouraging any approaches. For both labels, players will receive both positive and negative feedback, only varying based on consistency of their strategy.
Example
my first skeleton recieves positive official review for its scientific score, and my second skeleton was artistic, and recieved cute stickers instead, but it isn’t a full score because it was inconsistent with the previous skeleton’s label
Player Feedback
Players being able to tell what is being graded was critical:
Color, dialogue barks and snapping FX indicate the states of bones: whether they are connected, overlapping, being counted, and if the skeleton is finished.
Example
If the player doesn’t want to use a bone, they can leave them in the starting zone, where the bone is greyed out with a texture change.
Backend Narrative Progression
Inky was used to check in game variables and vary key words in response.
Each entry takes in the artistic or scientific label of the finished skeleton and chooses keywords in the journals accordingly.
Scoring in Code
Each bone prefab has a categorical tag: spine, rib, limb etc. with a list of possible connections it can make. Points are added for each improbable connection, and within a certain range, the skeleton is labeled artistic – if any non-bones are added it defaults to artistic.
The required range is adjusted with the ramping complexity/difficulty of the skeleton.
Example
The connection points of a Spine can connect to Skulls, Ribs, Tails or Limbs. The difficulty increases as more bones are added, increasing the likelihood of incorrect combinations.