Kevin van As

You

An autobiographical multiplayer game on individual happiness and relationships.

— PROJECT NAME

You


— ROLE

Game Designer

Unity Developer

Creative Director



— RELEASE DATE

August 2019


— DOWNLOAD

You_v3.2r1 (Windows)

This game requires 2 displays and 2

XBox 360/Xbox One controllers to play.

  1. — SUMMARY

"My girlfriend and I have different perspectives on what constitutes happiness, causing us to pursue different goals in life and have different expectations of our relationship. While Maan is an optimistic and impulsive lover of life, she has little interest in my hunger for competition and optimization. While my obsession with growth pushes her away sometimes, she's the reason I'm able to slow down, rest and enjoy the beauty of life."


A local multiplayer game for 2 players where one plays the role of Kevin, myself, while the other experiences what it's like to be my girlfriend Maan. Through these 2 characters players each see, navigate and use the same game-world in their own unique way. Kevin's view of the world is based on bare function while he controls like a kart-racer on a continuous quest for first place in a never-ending competition. Maan meanwhile plays like a third-person exploration game, featuring a colourful happy art-style and a world filled with plants and cats, each worth love and admiration.


The game was showcased in the summer of 2019 at the

Koffieleute Brauhaus and the HKU Exposure, both in Utrecht.

— TASKS

Development of the game in Unity and C#.


Researched the process of creating autonomous art and the dynamics of my relationship with my girlfriend, using my findings to inspire and shape the design of the game.


Recruited and managed game art students to create the visuals of the game.


Found locations, prepared and ran expositions of the game's prototypes and finished version.

Coding You

You features 2 playable characters, each subject to their own environmental agents. To facilitate this system I've split the game up in 3 layers of control. Where Kevin may handle his interactions with pick-ups on the track, KevinManager manages the a.i. drivers that populate his world. The GameManager oversees the entire system, capable of pausing, destroying and initializing all of the components needed to play or stop the game.


View my code on Gist.

XInputEX

The XInputDotNetPure plugin by Remi Gillig is a nice out-of-the-box solution for retrieving inputs from XInput devices, although limited in its functionality. I've written a class which extends the plugin with additional functions such as GetButtonDown(), as well as removing its overhead, now requiring only the usage of the XInputEX namespace to implement.


View the project on GitHub.

Download the Unity Package for your own use.

Collaboration

Originally a solo project, I’ve enrolled second-year HKU students to create the art for You. Functioning as creative director I’ve used extensive interviews, personality tests and moodboarding to convey the personalities of Maan and myself and the dynamics that make up our relationship, forming the foundation of the art styles and assets.