Crustacean Quest! Claw of Destiny

Game Description

“Crustacean Quest” is a 2D-puzzle adventure game, reminiscent of the original “Legend of Zelda” where you take control of Henry the Crab who must explore uncharted lands by solving puzzles and fighting evil bugs to complete his quest of finding the mythical Claw of Destiny!

Time Duration: January 2024 - August 2024

Role: Level Designer and Game Designer

Engine: Unity

Check the game out here!

Check out the game design doc!

Gameplay video of my work on the water level.

Responsibilities + Accomplishments

This was a game I worked on for the Illinois State University Game Dev club. This was my second major group project and I learned a lot from this experience especially what it was like to work with multiple groups of people. My contributions and responsibilities for this project was;

  • Conceptualized core player mechanics (e.g., weapons, tools, potions.

  • Conceptualized enemies and their behaviors (e.g., movement, weapons, special abilities.)

  • Designed and white-boxed water cave level with a focus on how the player can use the environment to their advantage.

  • Designed and implemented each puzzle and enemy encounter and adjusting based on play-tester feedback.

Working on this project was a lot of fun, and it was a great way to end my second year at ISU. I learned a lot more about the process of working in large groups and as well as what makes fun and interactive puzzles that engage the player but not take away from the overall enjoyment of the game.

Gif of first prototype/whitebox of the water dungeon level compared to the final version

Design Process

Since this was my second time working with the ISU game development club it was a lot easier to get in the swing of things and a lot of my anxieties of working in a large group were gone. After we designed the core abilities of each bug and items that the player would collect, we were split into groups of 2 to each work on the four different levels based off a different element. Me and my partner were assigned to the water dungeon which was meant to be the third dungeon that the player would come across. We decided to to make this dungeon more difficult then the other two by making it more tight-knit and hard to move in. We wanted the player to feel very claustrophobic when dealing with enemies to challenge them to think more critically about their resources and movement.

Flowchart of how the player will traverse and interact with the level

Flowchart of how the player will traverse and interact with the level