IT 01 - Taco Frog: A Third-Person Procedurally Generated Single and Multiplayer Game

Taco Frog is a third person action-adventure/shooter game that allows you to take on the procedurally generated areas with a friend locally or alone. After each area is cleared, the procedurally generated map will take on a different size, layout and/or difficulty to keep things fresh and interesting for an endless amount of playthroughs. This game will interest players that enjoy little to no story overhead, co-op or single player games that allow for exploration, combat, and platforming. Moreover, the procedurally generated map is randomized for every playthrough, with power ups, and item pickups also being randomized with multiple enemy types to keep each map filled with content. Additionally, there are multiple options to keep the gameplay fresh like an in-game store to improve the player abilities, difficulty settings and graphic options to suit all types of players. Taco Frog was constructed using the Unity 3D game engine for Windows.

In Taco Frog, you take on the mantle of the frog knight Sir Edward Hopper and/or his squire Engelbert Flyswatter. In this world, frogs love tacos from the great Taco Mountain but the only problem is the terrible Mole Clan wants to hoard them for themselves. Your task is to complete as many procedurally generated areas to retrieve the tacos from the Mole Clan. Secondary to this mission, you are to collect as many collectables to get the best aggregate score. The more areas that you complete the better your taco meter will become. But beware that if you and your squire fail, you must restart from scratch. It is up to you Sir. Edward Hopper to use any power-ups, items and strategies to defeat enemies and complete each section.

To further provide a novel viewpoint each time Taco Frog is played, each player is given a unique base set of stats. However those stats can be upgraded in any order the player choses using the collected gold in the in-game storefront. This approach is intended to keep things interesting as the player progresses and aims to introduce dynamism and eliminate the sense of repetition when a player must start over. It also gives the players the power to proceed further in the generated areas when they upgrade their abilities. In other words, the goal is to reduce stagnancy each time the player dies and increase player progression while also keeping players interested. In the same vein, highscores are displayed on the menus for single/multiplayer to give the players a goal to achieve and surpass.

Taco Frog was created to provide a solution to the current oversaturation of hyper-competitive online games and popularity of hyper-casual games by providing a more relaxed (yet still competitive) local co-op experience. Moreover, the engagement and collaborative sense of the game is increased by adding a second player. Procedurally generated maps assists with stagnancy issues that online competitive games often face; this solution promotes exploration in a map that is always different. Taco Frog aims to promote more interesting NPC (non playable characters) enemy types with Unity’s built-in AI (artificial intelligence) pathfinding and navigation in addition to unique actions that differ between enemy sub-types.