Lumberjacked – Roy Bomhof

Check it out on Itch.io!

Project Information

LUMBERJACKED is the story of two buff lumberjack bros who have their prized artifact, THE FRIDGE stolen by the BEER KING. In this co-operative puzzle action-adventure game, you have to throw everything you have (and can find) at the woodland cronies of the BEER KING and the puzzles that stand in your way. Including your bro.

Are you ready to throw the game?

MY ROLE(S) WITHIN THE PROJECT: General Design, Narrative Design, Writer, Level Design, Set dressing, Motion Capture actor, Creative Lead (Pre-Production)

PLATFORM: PC

DURATION PRE-PRODUCTION: 8 weeks

DURATION PRODUCTION: 8 weeks

TEAM SIZE PRE-PRODUCTION: 8

TEAM SIZE PRODUCTION: 24

ENGINE: Unreal Engine 4

ACHIEVEMENTS: Best Art Year 2, Audience Award Year 2

Pre-Production

Creating the concept

On IGAD we usually start out by selecting one of the briefs that the teachers present us with. This brief was the co-op brief. I love co-op games and have played my fair share of them. From the (vague) brief we created several concepts. Eventually we ended up with the idea that your co-op partner should become the weapon, based on the hat or helmet they could wear. A helmet with a sword on it would mean that your friend would behave like a sword; a hat with a spear would make your friend become a dart, and so on. Because this was rather unrealistic with all the different behaviors, we iterated on the concept again and just made it about two strong-armed knights that could throw everything they could find, including their friend and the bodies of fallen enemies.

Keeping co-op and lighthearted fun central

As predicted, when we gave players the option to throw their friend into all kinds of hazards, it quickly became apparent after playtesting that this created a lot of fun moments. Thus, one of the design pillars we set up was that it should stay light-hearted and non-punishing when players would die. You can watch a playthrough of the prototype here.

An early mock-up of the throwing concept and puzzles

In the early concepts, we had the idea that hats changes the throwing behavior. Beautiful art by me.

Screenshot of the prototype where players have to overcome a basic puzzle

As the game progressed, puzzles got harder

Combat encounters were already frequently implemented

Production: World-building & Narrative

During the production or Lumberjacked, I took on the role of a narrative designer. I’ve been busy as a vision holder for anything in the world and helped the artists give form to the world.

Thematic

The thematic concept changed during the production of the project when the Artists and Programmers joined the team. We settled on ‘Buff Lumberjacks fighting woodland creatures in their lumber forest’ as the thematic.

Creating the characters and the world around them

To help define the characters, I made one-pagers to define the characters better. I looked at the stereotypical kind of lumberjacks and came up with two very different characters; Angus, the protective, fatherlike strong man, and Finn, the frappuccino-loving hipster. In the persona document I made, I added some visual references and some things that they typically would love.

Creating the narrative and the dialogues

Since our game was going to be linear, we originally had the idea to use dialogue to give additional flavour to these characters and give some tips on puzzles. I created the blueprints and UI, wrote the dialogues and implemented everything in the levels. However, after playtesting, we discovered that players would not read them at all or that they would just distract the player. Eventually, we decided to cut them in the final build of the game.

An example of one of the dialogues in the game

Set-Dressing & Additional Level Design

Narrative Context with Set-dressing

The level designers came up with all kinds of crazy puzzles, environments and combat encounters, but not once did they think about the context of the areas. This was a big problem for the art team who was going to do the set-dressing. They made the assets required, but no area had context. During the last few weeks, I helped contextualize almost all the areas and set-dressed a lot of them. I also learned a valuable lesson for level design; always keep the context of the area in mind.

Additional Level Design

During this project, I stood up the plate and helped wherever necessary. However, because I did not have a specific role, I wanted to do some additional level design where players could close the story. I made sketches and designs for a final level and started working on them after the project. You can read the level design document here. However, many of the assets were poorly made and required very hacky solutions to use them. I dropped the level design in favor of creating Zeil, a personal project that I made together with a good friend.