Fled vs Fox
Fled vs Fox is a 3-D isometric point and click strategy game created by Academy of Art University students. This game was a collaborative project done by Hewett Chin and his peers in 2016. This game won 3rd place in the Academy of Art University BOSS Awards and was featured in the Academy of Art University booth at GDC in 2017 and 2018.
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The Concept
The project started off with the concept of "social issues". The team decided that "school shootings" would become the overarching theme of the game in which the player would control an adult owl and lead baby owls to safety away from a carnivorous fox. It was also decided that there would be no hyper realistic art in order to make the game as friendly as possible. The game ended up using animals to represent the students, teacher, and the shooter.
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The Characters
There were 3 different types of owl models that would represent the students: a blue male owl, a pink female owl, and a fat brown owl. There is 1 adult owl model that represents the teacher. This is the owl that the player would control. Last but not least, there is 1 fox model which represents the shooter. Initially, the fox would have to look for a net gun before being able to enter the school but the idea was scrapped due to time constraints.
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The Idea
When the idea of playing as an owl to lead baby owls to safety was first conjured, the team had the idea of making the game player vs player with one player playing as the owl teacher and another playing as the hunting fox. However, as previously stated, the idea was scrapped due to time constraints. It ended up with the player controlling the owl teacher while the fox was controlled by AI.
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Due to the loss of a second human player playing as the fox, changes had to be made in order to make the game balanced. The fox would no longer use a net gun to capture owls and would instead be allowed to roam the school immediately and start hunting. We had to decide many factors that could change the balance such as how fast the fox would move before and after eating an owl, how fast the fox eating animation would play, how the fox would determine which owl to chase, and how the fox would react if an owl wandered into its sight.