Documentation / User Manual

Original Concept vs Final Iteration

Significant changes were undertaken from concept to final iteration, while the core gameplay did not chance reduction in scope of project was necessary due to time contraints and difficulty implementing some of the features. Originally i planned on adding various diferent types of mechanics related to marine life.

1. Electric Eel - This idea was scrapped fairly early on as i ran into troubles with the art fairly early on and attempting to implement this with a placeholder created new difficulties with regard to coding, the two states plus pathfinding turned out to be more difficult than expected so i decided to scrap the idea for this Iteration and came back to it in a later version. To compensate for lack of variety in enemy types i implemented 6 colour types of the fish that the player consumes with 2 animation states for each, where originally it was going to be more simplified.
2. Fisherman's Hook - This idea did not make it out of drawing board, attempted to implement it early on with a placeholder but once i shifted my plan of 3 levels layered vertically on top of eachother this idea did not work anymore due to the idea been if you failed the quick time event you would be pulled from level 2 for example to level 1 but once i had 3 seperate scenes i could not figure out how to implement this in a suitable timeframe.
3. Pixel Art - While i did not have too much trouble with the base sprites, it ended up becoming too time consuming with the timeframe and different shapes of various marine life which led to scaling issues creating problems mainly surrounding the player character increasing in size. I pivoted to using custom art i found online which was of a much stronger quality and fit the theme nicely. The background art i created remains in the final Iteration.

Testing Session Feedback

I held a successful testing session in which i gathered feedback on various features such as art, gameplay loop, mechanic interactions and difficutly. This is outlined below:

Bugs

• Second to last growth stage seemed to trigger a fail maybe visually showing big enough to win but shark still wins.
• dashing through the shark occasionally led to collision issues where player got pushed through shark.
• Fish coliding with eachother causing stopped movement.

Visual Appeal

• Yellow fish is too similar too player and should be removed.
• Awesome looks great.
• Very suitable art style for the game. Animations basic but serve the purpose and background is really neat.

UI feedback

• Slightly bigger buttons and allign them more centrally.
• Good maybe different font.

Improvements

• Getting eaten should be end point.
• Maybe reset player size.
• Lives system.
• Checkpoints

The feedback gained allowed me to further refine the game significantly, The main change was implementing a break to the gameplay to address difficulty concerns without ruining the challenge, To address difficulty concerns without disrupting the core challenge, I originally planned to implement a dedicated “win screen” after each level. However, due to timing and implementation issues, this idea was removed. Instead, levels now transition directly upon defeating the shark, which keeps the pace tight and simplifies scene management. The player is rewarded immediately with points and moves on to the next level or the high score screen after Level 3. and allow for the chance to view their score and try again before moving on. There was also some flaws in the player growth logic where the shark would start fleeing 1 stage before it was attackable causing the player to die to been confused thinking they were large enough to win. This was corrected by altering the growth logic slightly and adding a text element that spawns when shark is killable to alert the player of change in behaviour. I also adjusted all the menus to have a more clear visual look by normalising all font sizes and styles across all scenes and removing backgrounds from buttons to make it look more clean and adding shadows to all text elements. I had slightly conflcting feedback regarding improvements, I removed the yellow fish as it was too similar  to player yellow fish model and used coding to flip the sprite that was breaking due to aniamtions changing direcitons of the sprite causing the collider to be backwards which seems to have fixed the player vs shark collision issues. I attempted to keep the 1 life system to keep the feel of the game the same but did attempt to add a checkpoint but it was never functionally fully and ended up having to remove it as a flawed prototype and settling on the level complete screen, this will be further worked on as game develops further.

Asset List

Core Gameplay and Mechanics

Player.prefab - Prefab with player game object will all relevent components

Player.spriterenderer -sourced from this website. (animations included) https://www.gamedeveloperstudio.com/graphics/viewgraphic.php?page-name=Scary-fis...

Player.controller - Animation controller for player with 4 states

Eightwaymovement.cs - Adapted from script from practical material to serve as eight directional movement for the player with a dash mechanic built in that increase speed for a short time upon hitting space bar

Playereatandgrow.cs - Serves to facilitate the core mechanic of the game which is eating small fish to grow larger

Shieldpowerup.cs - Triggers a shield on the player for 5 secs that protects against  the shark

Playerhiding.cs - Triggered when entering hiding zone in level and makes shark stop hunting player

Shield.prefab - holds components for the shield object in the level 1,2,3 scenes

Shieldpickup.cs - logic for shield duration

Shield.spriterenderer - 1 (5) (https://darkart3d.itch.io/free-24-animated-pixel-shields-8-frame-light-beam-fx)

Player.shieldsprite - shieldWhite_Edit (https://opengameart.org/content/shield-sprite) 

Enemies

Spawner.prefab - spawns PreyFish across the 3 levels

Fishspawner.cs - holds a array for the PreyFish prefabs and spawns in 5 fish at a time with a spawn radius and links PreyFish to player game object

Shark.prefab - Prefab holding all the components for shark enemy object

Shark.spriterenderer - sourced from this website. (animations included) https://www.gamedeveloperstudio.com/graphics/viewgraphic.php?item=184n1c35396l1z...

Sharkbehaviour.cs - Controls all the behaviours of the shark enemy such as AI behaviour and eating the player and eating fish mechanics

SharkAnimator.controller - Animation controller for the 4 states of the shark

PreyFish.spriterenderer - sourced from this website. (animations included) https://www.gamedeveloperstudio.com/graphics/viewgraphic.php?item=1j4k9e3u912a09...

PreyFish_Black.prefab - Prefab holding the PreyFish black colour variant and all the components

PreyFishAnimator_Black.controller - Animation controller for black PreyFish object

PreyFish_Blue.prefab- Prefab holding the PreyFish blue colour variant and all the components

PreyFishAnimator_Blue.controller - Animation controller for black PreyFish object

PreyFish_Green.prefab - Prefab holding the PreyFish green colour variant and all the components

PreyFishAnimator Green.controller - Animation controller for black PreyFish object

PreyFish_Red.prefab - Prefab holding the PreyFish red colour variant and all the components

PreyFishAnimator_Red.controller - Animation controller for black PreyFish object

PreyFish_Silver.prefab - Prefab holding the PreyFish silver colour variant and all the components

PreyFishAnimator_Silver.controller - Animation controller for black PreyFish object

Fishfleeandwander.cs - AI behaviours attached to all the colour variants of PreyFish

Fishoneaten.cs - destroys PreyFish upon been eaten by player or shark

Sounds

Menu music -https://leohpaz.itch.io/ocean-music-pack

Cursor click - https://opengameart.org/content/fisheefects

Fish Bite - https://uppbeat.io/sfx/cartoon-bite-2/10352/27174

Levelmusicmanager.prefab - contains script and audio source

Levelmusicplayer.cs - plays level music across all level scenes

Menumusicplayer.prefab - contains script and audio source

Menumusicplayer.cs - plays menu music across all menu scenes

World / Enviroment

Scenes

Scene Transitions – Level transitions are handled directly by GameManager.cs without intermediate win screens. Upon defeating the shark, the game immediately advances to the next level or to the high score screen.

GameManager.cs – Handles global logic such as time limits, score saving, and scene transitions between Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and the high score screen. Includes built-in singleton logic and resets game state on each level load. WinScene was originally part of the design but was replaced with direct level transitions for smoother gameplay.

GameOverScene - Scene to handle player death or timer run out

HighScores - Display player high scores at end of successful game

Level1 - First level

Level2 - Second level

Level3 - Third level

SubmitHighScore - Input high score achieved for record keeping

TitleScene - Opening main menu scene

Visuals

Menu Background - ChatGPT generated

Menu Buttons (Main Menu, Try Again, Start, Quit, Retry, Submit)

Left, Right, Bottom, Top Walls - Colliders to prevent player or enemies going off screen

LevelBackground - Links to respective background sprite

Level-1-Background - Self made background art

Level-2-Background - Self made background art

Level-3-Background - self made background art

Coral1 - cosmetic marine plant life (https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/hand-drawn-cartoon-coral-illustration_496855...)

Coral2 - cosmetic marine plant life (https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/hand-drawn-cartoon-coral-illustration_496855...)

Coral3 - cosmetic marine plant life (https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/hand-drawn-cartoon-coral-illustration_496855...)

Seaweed1 - cosmetic marine plant life (https://www.freepik.com/free-psd/green-seaweed-transparent-background_404260844....)

Seaweed2 - cosmetic marine plant life (https://www.freepik.com/free-psd/green-seaweed-transparent-background_404260844....)

Tallseaweed1 - cosmetic marine plant life, also hiding place from shark (https://chatgpt.com/share/6815d0a3-c8c0-800e-b6c9-42a1bc92621a)

Tallseaweed2 - cosmetic marine plant life, also hiding place from shark (https://chatgpt.com/share/6815d0a3-c8c0-800e-b6c9-42a1bc92621a)

User Guide

Title

Gone Fishin'

Description

You play the role of a small yellow fish in a vast ocean, the goal is to consume many small fish to grow in size while avoiding a predator shark. To proceed to next level you need to grow large enough to eat the shark before a 60 second time elapses. You will tackle 3 levels with escalating difficulty and secure a high score.

Game Sections

AI Statement

ChatGPT was used to assist with unity and coding issues along the way given the timeframe.

https://chatgpt.com/share/6839aecf-3fb0-800e-a0c4-acfa10cbe516
https://chatgpt.com/share/6839aee5-31e0-800e-b7e6-ac2713e7b620

https://chatgpt.com/share/6839af0d-ad64-800e-bd0d-afc8a177d3f5

Reference List

ChatGPT. (2025). Gone Fishin’ Unity Devlog Iterations. https://chatgpt.com/share/6815d0a3-c8c0-800e-b6c9-42a1bc92621a

DarkArts Studio. (n.d.). Free 24 animated pixel shields + 8-frame light beam FX [Game asset]. Itch.io. https://darkart3d.itch.io/free-24-animated-pixel-shields-8-frame-light-beam-fx

Freepik. (n.d.). Green seaweed transparent background [Free PSD]. Freepik. https://www.freepik.com/free-psd/green-seaweed-transparent-background_404260844.htm

Freepik. (n.d.). [Cartoon coral illustration – dead link]. Freepik. (Original link inactive: https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/hand-drawn-cartoon-coral-illustration_496855.htm)

Garak. (2012). Fisheefects. OpenGameArt. https://opengameart.org/content/fisheefects

Game Developer Studio. (n.d.). Purple seaweed asset. https://www.gamedeveloperstudio.com/graphics/viewgraphic.php?item=184n1c35396l1z887x

Game Developer Studio. (n.d.). Red and green coral graphic. https://www.gamedeveloperstudio.com/graphics/viewgraphic.php?item=1j4k9e3u912a09031t

Game Developer Studio. (n.d.). Scary fish sprite [Animated sprite]. https://www.gamedeveloperstudio.com/graphics/viewgraphic.php?page-name=Scary-fish-sprite&item=1t4o133i3n2f817f81

Leohpaz. (2021). Ocean Music Pack [Game audio]. itch.io. https://leohpaz.itch.io/ocean-music-pack

Redshrike. (2012). Shield Sprite [Sprite asset]. OpenGameArt. https://opengameart.org/content/shield-sprite

Uppbeat. (n.d.). Cartoon bite 2 [Sound effect]. https://uppbeat.io/sfx/cartoon-bite-2/10352/27174