Goals :
Group project of 8 students that I initiated and led over 5 months. Keep the Crown was designed to help young children relax before dental surgery. In order to avoid the spread of bacteria as much as possible, Keep the Crown is entirely playable with the eyes.
Period :
February - June 2024
Programming : Vivian Boudon, Raphaël Daubelcour
UX & UI : Josselin Querné
Production : Jean-Philippe Ménier
Game & Level Design : Jean-Philippe Ménier
2D Art : Jennifer Yip, Alexander Morvan
3D Art : Nathanaël Francez, Alexander Morvan
QA & Playtest organization : Thomas Ouellet
Git link :
Company :
Dental clinic DenTtT
Engine:
From November 2023 to February 2024, I prepared the launch of this innovative internship project for myself and 7 of my university classmates. Considering the economic difficulties that the video game industry was going through at the time, few students around me were able to find an internship.
So I had the idea of collaborating with a dentist friend from my network to develop an original concept: the creation of a VR game intended to help child patients relax before dental surgery.
The goal was to combine entertainment and well-being in a medical setting, while limiting the spread of bacteria as much as possible.
Due to the atypical nature of this project, my university required that it meet many prerequisites. The most important thing was to have industry professionals to supervise us.
So I met and convinced the following three professionals: Alexandrine Simard, Victor Leblanc and Jean-François Leclerc.
The Internship Initiative
Game & Level Design
Game Design:
The initial concept of Keep the Crown was completely different. At first, we intended to create a simulation where the player cleaned teeths. To do this, it was necessary to use different tools, each corresponding to a specific situation. Throughout the game, a mascot in the form of a dentist would encouraged the player and, if necessary, indicate which tool to use. If the tooth had cavities, the player could look at the dentist so that he could treat it.
It was a more relaxing concept that the client rejected. He didn't find it immersive enough and asked us to create a more "arcade" game. That's when I designed the final concept of the game, based on a personal protoype i did a year ago.
Level Design
For Keep the Crown, the level design consisted of defining the enemy wave system.
Initialy, I intended to establish an increasing difficulty common to arcade games.
The player's objective would have been to delay the game over as much as possible.
The idea was abandoned after the client considered using the game during dental surgery.
Such a situation required the patient to be as immobile as possible, which was not compatible with a game that was ultimately too hard not to lose to.
So I decided that the difficulty would be overall the same, but with different types of challenges. To do this I created levels that used combinations of different enemies and also varied their statistics. Sometimes they were more numerous, faster or only appeared in certain places.
Concept
Impulse Shooter is a shooting game that isboth an FPS and a TPS. Each time the player fires, the perspective switches from the view of the shooter to the back of the projectile. The player then has the ability to give asecond projectile impulse in the direction of his choice.
The game level takes place ina wide hallway including targets, transparent walls and boosters, areprocedurally generated. The boosters are objects which, in contact with the player's projectile, allow him an additional impulse.
In Impulse Shooter, players must use precision and strategy to eliminate all targets with an allotted number of impulses.
The wave management datas have been entirely mapped in an Excel file, and I improved the balancing of the difficulty based on feedback we obtained from playtests.
Production
Communication:
For a small project, Keep the Crown involved many people that could be sorted into different groups:
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Eight students
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The client
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Three tutors
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The Isart Montreal internship manager
As a producer, I was the communication hub between all these groups that rarely communicated with each other. For the internship to work well, it was essential to understand and reconcile everyone's goals.
Plannification :
The project was carefully planned to ensure smooth progress and efficient resource management.
The first two weeks were dedicated to research and preparation. This included in-depth research into the use of VR in the medical context, as well as testing various possible gameplay mechanics. Based on this research, we developed the gameplay of the game.
From weeks 3 to 8, the team focused on producing the game. Each week, I setted specific goals for each team member. On Thursday, we met with the mentors to assess progress and adjust priorities for the following week. Friday was dedicated to correcting the tasks completed during the week, thus ensuring the continued quality of development.
The last two weeks were reserved for optimizing the game, “polishing”, and fixing any last bugs before finalizing the project.