The project - an overview
Next Level Nursing is an educational game to teach nursing students about intercultural communication. It is a 2D point & click game with puzzle elements and focus on communication.
- Platform: Unity
- Group size: 8
- Time: 5 months
- Course: Smart Solutions Semester
My part in the project
- Concept finding
- Game design
- Map and Level design
- Storytelling, chapter design
- Writing conversations
- Gameplay scripting in C#
This was the first time for me working on an educational game. It was a challenge in the beginning, since we had to find a balance between fun gameplay and conveying information. After comparing different concepts, we decided to create a chapter-based game, which can be expanded upon on the client’s needs.
Working in Unity - examples
We worked only with 2D assets, but decided to use the 3D functionality of Unity. This enabled us to use components like the NavMesh agent. I also created different camera behaviours in order to make the game feel more lively and interesting to look at.
While playtesting we noticed, that some of our players were not experienced with games and needed additional assistance in order to understand the controls and mechanics of the game. For this reason I added small quality of life features (footprints to show where to click, an animated material effect to show which objects are interactable).
While developing this chapter we noticed, that it was sometimes tedious to move from one room to another since it takes a lot of time. Therefore, I added a fast travel system which serves as a quality of life feature, but is not required for beating the chapter.
Map and Level design - examples
Below one can find the development of the floor plan. The original version was adjusted in order to compensate for changes in the storytelling, it was for example necessary to add an additional room (waiting room), and the second patient room was made accessible to the player.
Writing conversations - examples
Since the conversations were being implemented by another programmer, I decided to create flowcharts of them. Two examples of those flowcharts can be found below.
