Dane Hildreth
Go to Hole
Before you say anything, it's not golf!
Just two guys (or one) (or four!) being a little ball and flinging themselves across beautiful green pastures to get in a hole!
-
It's competition!
-
It's skill!
-
It's friendship and camaraderie!
...but most importantly... It's not golf!
So come on and play. Customize a man. Play with a friend, or yourself. Launch said man slingshot-style across randomly generated levels and watch him flail and bounce as he tries his darndest to fulfill his only objective: Go To Hole!!
​
Development
Go to Hole was made for the 2024 Global Game Jam with a team of 2. Our initial concept was based off of the jam's theme -- Make Me Laugh. We focused on things we thought were funny that could be implemented in a weekend to make a game and came up with 2 solid concepts that would be the foundation of our game: Ragdoll Physics and Pachinko.
My Contribution
I was responsible for:
-
Gameplay Design
-
Level Design
-
UI/UX Design
-
Asset production
-
Audio Design
Ideation
We used Miro to brainstorm and make the initial design concepts. From there we created the game loop and mechanics needed to progress through game.
Level Design
Go to Hole randomly generates each course played but selecting 4 different "level chunks" from a pool of 12. I was in charge of designing 6 level chunks. Each segment is centered around a funny occurrence or two that could happen with the difficulty varying drastically to add more nuance to what the overall level will become.​
​
Designing the chunks came with unique problems that had to be addressed early on in the level process. Each segment had to line up with the others to appear seamless and could not impede the design of adjacent chunks.
Once the systems were implemented by our programmer I was abler to bring the designs for our randomized level "chunks" to life using the Unity tile map system. Some of these designs started as sketches before the level creator was implemented but most were workshopped inside Unity.
The primary design goal of each chunk was to make the player laugh, this allowed us to have freedom with the level difficulty as the player would not mind wasting their turn if the results of their launch were humorous enough. Each chunk began as a planned trajectory for where the player would have to go to travers to the other side of the level, then the material and bocking began to make that path visible to the player.
A fun fact about these level chunks is that -- while they are numbered in the editor to make more sense overall. I personally refer to them by unique names that I have given them such as, "The Intestine", and, "Rudolph".
Reflection
This game was a joy to create. I personally love playing multiplayer co-op games so I tested each segment with glee and whimsy.​
​
This project helped refine the pipeline that I use to make designs and how to implement them into Unity — starting with sketches and ideas and seeing it all the way through to the end project. I plan on revisiting this project to add more environmental variance and an online multiplayer option as well to improve replay value.
Credits
Dane Hildreth: Level Designer, Art Director, Audio Director
Jake Gollub: Level Designer, Programmer