Game Description
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Don't Make me Laugh is a doom-like shooter where the weapon is tomato shooter, and the monsters are comedians!
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Story
You hate comedy, comedian and comics. You are breaking into comedy clubs to get rid of these horrible jokes. You throw tomatoes at whatever comedian tries to break your mind with their silly little words, for if you laugh you turn into one of the mindless comics. Will you be able to get rid of this empty laughter, or will you succumb to the laughing yourself?
Level Layout
First Floor
Second Floor
Final room
Courtesy of Dawson Inkster
Sketches
The original idea of the layout was a sequence of rooms reminiscent of a comedy club, without worrying about realism. The player would make their way through a few rooms until they'd reach the green room, where they'd face a boss.
Physical Prototype
Prompted by our teacher, we devised a paper prototype, to see how the game felt to walk through, enemies included.
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This is when the ideas of having only two types of enemies (close range audience zombies and long range comedians) came up, as well as the rough amount of enemies per room was decided.
The first secret room in full view, to introduce the concept.
Fake walls can be walked through to get to secret areas!
The main controls on the walls
The first secret room in full view, to introduce the concept.
Tutorial
We made sure to implement as many introductions in the first room as we could.
We put posters with the basic controls around the room, put a window in the door to the first room, and implemented a "bouncer" that introduced both the basic audience zombies, their jokes, and the concept of a secret room, since it can only be accessed through the different colored wall in the next room.
Secrets
While building the in game layout, I had the urge to add secret rooms, as they are part of what makes doom so enjoyable to me, since they encourage exploration.
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It became a big part of the humor in the game, and they were very fun to implement!
A room full of Kevins
Why is this monster not attacking?
A room full of Kevins
The curtain reveals a hord of enemies...
The only room with verticality!
The final room
After building the level in game, we understood that the green room idea would be anticlimactic. Instead, I turned it into a massive stage on which the player is, and fights their largest amount of enemies yet. They've been fighting comedians, now they become the comedian.
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After experimenting a Halo: Reach - like survival ending. After playtesting, it didn't feel earned or rewarding, so we turned it into a regular kill everyone room.
