Clean Corps
ROLE
Sole Developer
ABOUT
Made for the Progress@Play 2023 competition, this Unity first person shooter sees you take the role of a trash collecting superhero. With Gameplay Inspired by DOOM (1993) and unique gameplay additions, this submission wowed players and Judges alike and secured the Third Place position in the University Division with over 50 submissions.
Background
The Progress@Play digital art competition seeks to raise public awareness of social issues through computer games and digital art to demonstrate their potential for positive impacts.
To accomplish this, I wanted to take a game genre usually synonymous with violence (first-person shooters)
and twist it to create a message about environmental protection and how one person can have a positive impact on thier Community. Thus,
Clean Corps
was born.
Development
The game from the beginning was always supposed to be a first-person shooter but what was difficult for a while for me was figuring out how to tie that into an environmental message. This eventually ended up with making the player character a fictional trash collecting superhero.
I wanted the game to have another mechanic on top of typical first-person shooter gameplay, so I eventually landed on the idea of the player having a vacuum arm to clean up loose trash around each level. This helped create a nice flow of movement, shooting enemies, and sucking up trash to make the gameplay more unique and dynamic.
The game takes inspiration from mainly DOOM (1993) in how objects are displayed. The game uses sprite billboarding; a technique popularized by games like Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and DOOM (1993). Put simply, sprite billboarding takes 2D images and makes them face towards the camera, making these 2D sprites work in a 3D environment.
In each level there are enemies to defeat and trash to collect with some levels being linear and others being more open ended in how the player can approach them. When the player reaches the end of each level they are scored on how much trash they cleaned as well as how many of the enemies they defeated. In the final Steam version of the game time will also be a factor in the grade you get on each level. The game also takes inspiration from other games like Neon White (2022) and ULTRAKILL (2020) with its fast movement and emphasis on dodging enemy projectiles.
Gameplay
The Player
The World
The Enemies
The player controls the game in a first person view, using WASD to move and the mouse to look around. They can also jump for platforming and slide to help avoid enemy attack and move around the level faster. Combat is quite simple with some more added depth. The player can shoot enemies (if they have ammo) and can even shoot enemy bullets to destroy them! This also gives the player an added speed boost when successful. The player can also suck up trash scattered across the beach with a vacuum arm!
The goal was to have a simple first-person character who was simple for anyone to control but also has depth in their capabilities for more seasoned players.
From beaches to sewer depths. Clean Corps takes you through multiple levels and environments that test your movement and skills. Levels are short and sweet allowing for easy replayability. Enemies and trash aren't the only thing that is placed in each level as other pickups including ammo and health will help you out on your mission. While most levels are linear, others are more open ended or serve as showcases to some of the game's other mechanics.
On the development side this served as a great way to test level design knowledge and designing each of them to be distinct in how they're layouts was a good challenge.
Every hero needs an enemy to fight, and in Clean Corps “The Rubbish” takes that role. Sentient trash that seeks to stop you in your goal of cleaning the beach. I designed the enemies to be stationary mainly because of the games focus on getting good times on levels. With enemies standing still and acting more like turrets, this allowes there to be predictability in the layout of levels and is an important factor in making replaying levels for better times fun.
At the end of the game however a fearsome boss awaits you to fully test your mettle in a multi stage fight that will but your reflexes to the test! Designing the boss fight was by far one of my favorite parts of creating this game and i'm very happy with how it turned out.
More Levels
The Story
The game's story scenes take place in between levels through cutscenes and sees you in the shoes of a kid named Leo. When going to the beach one day he notices it's covered with trash and has seemingly not been cleaned for ages. He realized that he can't clean the beach by himself so to inspire others to help he created a comic book about a trash collecting superhero team!
This helps convince the other kids in his neighborhood to help out and they work together to clean up the entire beach! In the game you play as the fictional superhero in said comic book cleaning up trash and defeating monsters. The game's core story is not only about environmental protection, but mainly about how one person can use their creativity and imagination to inspire others and create a positive impact on their community.
Then
Now
&
Since I first started working on this project there has been multiple stylistic and design changes. All of it has been invaluable knowledge on all the aspects of creating a full game and I'm proud of how far the game has come since its debut and leading up to its full release.
