About the Game
The Mopster is a first person cleaning game aimed for a mature audience.
In The Mopster, the player is tasked with cleaning up a crime scene for an intimidating organised crime syndicate. Clean up the Crime, No Witnesses, No Police, No Funny Business. Utilise your trusty mop to dispose of all things deemed suspicious.
This project was my first solo attempt at creating a game prototype.
Background
Going into this project, I was still confidently pursuing a career in Asset Development, which I intended to showcase with this project. Every asset created in this project was modelled and textured by myself, utilising Maya, ZBrush and Substance Painter for my workflow.
Towards the end of development of The Mopster, I came to a realisation that I thoroughly enjoyed the game development process, therefore changing disciplines from Asset Production to Indie Development during the second year of my time in University.
Mechanics
Due to the cleaning aspect of the game, I kept the mechanics very simple. The player has to equip their mop and clean up any and all blood stains on the floor. This is done via the static mesh being socketed into the player's right arm and having it's own functions.
As well as this, I made a picking up system which when an object has physics enabled, the player can pick it up and interact with it. This feature was made so the player can pick up and dispose of bloodied hats around the environment, which contribute to the total cleaned counter.
The blood stains and hats were two separate classes, but being tied together to a bound widget which counts both items as destroyable objects for the player's objective.
Narrative
The other key element of this project was it's environmental storytelling, found in the forms of notes and telephone voicemails the player can interact with around the map. I wanted there to be more than just mindless cleaning and include an inferred plot for the player, which inspired me to create a narrative hidden in the game that is completely optional for the player to discover.
The player would be rewarded with context for their purpose, explaining why they are cleaning up a crime scene for nefarious reasons and how the location ties back to the protagonist. I had a lot of fun collaborating on this narrative with Imogen Dare, who worked with me to create an engaging subplot.
What I Learned
That making a game, by yourself, is hard. Creating this project wasn't easy, but I threw myself into it and ended up enjoying every second. This project introduced me to the wonders of Game Development and from that point on I knew I wanted to pursue that as my future career path. All the assets, audio and mechanics coming together into this one project to create a game which I am proud of was a great feeling.
