Godot

Game Designer.
Audio Producer.

Engine

Roles

Crab.Bit

2023

Team

Year

Steam & Shells

A third-person ‘crab’ stealth platformer.

Something twisted is afoot. Fresh intel has just arrived, and there’s an insidious bioweapon hidden in the depths of a boathouse somewhere in the ocean. Playing as detective crustaceans Agent H, a hermit crab, and Steamclaw, a robot king crab, find out the truth about what’s going on. The Agency will do it’s best, but it won’t always be there for you. Please stay safe, Agent H.

Spiritual Successor to Crab Crab Revolution.

Work Conducted

Game Design

This was meant to be the most ambitious project we had set out on, especially after the debacle of the Unity pricing scheme had meant we had shifted our focus to designing on a completely new engine. This game was to build upon several design principles we had set out in CCR and create something new with them.

The core intention was build upon the stealth genre by having the player control two different entities in order to navigate through the environment in a unique way, Agent H and Steamclaw. This would’ve also added a layer of complexity to how to solve puzzles and evade guards who were patrolling the ship.

The game would’ve flowed through a level by level basis as the player uncovered the secrets of the mysterious boat they resided on, paired with a rich narrative of heartbreak and revenge.

Audio Design

This was another journey into streamlining my learning process as I had to learn inbuilt Godot’s audio system rather than risk trying to implement Wwise into the design process as that risked causing too many bugs. Thankfully Godot’s documentation is helpfully thorough.

I got as far as using signals to recreate features already present in Wwise, such as sequence containers, random containers etc. This was to help change the sound of actions when they came in contact with different surfaces.

I had also taken another dip into a making music in a genre I was entirely unfamiliar with, namely steampunk. This was far more fun than I was expecting as crafting the tracks around the concept art that was being made helped tie the creative experience together.