Project Overview
A life beyond an assigned fate
Jaguar is a narrative-driven 2D puzzle platformer about fate, freedom and the truth behind belief. A young jaguar discovers a serpent mark identifying them as the next ritual sacrifice. Rather than accept a tradition passed down for thousands of years, they search for a way out of the city.
The same mark that threatens to define the protagonist’s life becomes a source of transformation. Switching between a grounded jaguar and a flying bird opens routes through a city shaped by rituals, shrines and guarded thresholds.
I have built a playable first chapter in Unity, bringing my concept art, story and level design together in my first game-development project.
Inspiration & Direction
A longstanding interest in Maya-inspired worlds
The visual direction and worldbuilding draw inspiration from the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. Before university, I had already created Maya-inspired characters and stories, and I continued exploring these ideas during my studies. Jaguar develops that interest into an interactive world.
The city and its rituals are fictional. Jade ornaments, feathers, stepped architecture and woven patterns inform the designs rather than functioning as a historical reconstruction.
I organised manuscript and stone-carving references separately from contemporary character concept art. I noted ways to carry carved textures into headdresses and accessories, and explored feather shapes and circular, square and spiral patterns for the details.
Movement, atmosphere and readable space
Ori and Hollow Knight are gameplay references for movement, traversal and exploration. Hollow Knight also informed the side-view composition: a readable character silhouette, a clear ground line and enough screen space to anticipate the route.
I also looked to GRIS for its painted atmosphere and quiet visual storytelling. I worked with the project’s existing brushwork, placing warm golden fur and wooden structures against blue mountains and turquoise shrine light.
Narrative & Encounters
Question the ritual through conversation
The opening townsfolk treat becoming an offering as an honour. Their dialogue establishes a conflict between communal belief and the protagonist’s wish to live. Plaza conversations connect unusual light, the priest and the approaching ceremony to the escape route.
Bird form changes more than movement: NPCs respond to the bird differently, and guards do not recognise it as the jaguar. Dialogue therefore provides both worldbuilding and practical clues for traversal.
From belief to a route out
The intended narrative arc leads from hearing the city’s explanations to questioning them. The bird totem introduces a power that the player can use for an unexpected purpose: reaching spaces beyond the path prescribed for them.
I returned to the original design to connect bird form, the priest’s belief in omens and the guards leaving their posts. Those interactions now run in the game. I currently connect the opening and departure with text and gameplay events; their illustrated sequences remain at the storyboard stage.
Make the omen change the route
My early notes gave the bird a second role beyond flight: the city interprets it as a sacred sign. I carried that belief into the escape mechanics. In the current prototype, approaching the priest in bird form automatically starts the good-omen conversation. It triggers once on approach, so closing the panel does not immediately reopen it; E can still revisit the dialogue.
The first version required the priest’s conversation before the crescent could summon the guards. I later connected the guard response directly to the crescent, so players no longer have to complete that conversation first. The phase must remain in place briefly; changing it back before the reaction completes cancels the response.
The upper guard reports that the sacred light has become a crescent, turns toward the ritual and fades out after the brief report. The ground guard walks away to the ritual area. Their reactions make the result of changing the light visible in the city. The two symbols must still be aligned, and the guards must have left their posts, before the passage is clear.
Being seen in jaguar form now gives a different kind of feedback: each guard has a matching portrait and an explicit expulsion line. The player reads and acknowledges that warning before returning to the checkpoint. Once distracted by the ritual, the guards stop recognising the player, and that progress survives checkpoint recovery within the same session.
Plan the story in drawings before finishing the scenes
I sketched the opening as a sequence of close details of the protagonist, the sacrificial ritual and wider views of the city. I placed the serpent mark and the ritual together before the player starts looking for a way out. The next stage is to develop these drawings into the opening cinematic.
The ending begins with thumbnail sketches of departure and open space. In the next stage, I plan to develop these compositions into a complete closing sequence.
Early Prototype Design
An escape begins with a concealed mark
In my early design notes, I planned Chapter One as a continuous escape, linking story, dialogue and environmental puzzles. This plan predates the later Unity iterations; its narrative events and cinematics provide a direction for further development. I drew on Maya-inspired worldbuilding for the fictional city and used GRIS as a reference for a side-view puzzle experience that reveals parts of its story through illustrated sequences.
The protagonist wakes in the city and discovers serpent scales on the inside of their arm: a sign that they have been chosen as the next offering. They cover the scales with an armband. Around them, townsfolk speak of sacrifice as an honour, while the protagonist values their own life and wants to leave. The immediate goal is to find a way out without using the guarded main gate, by speaking to people and interacting with the city.
The mark is both a curse and a gift: it identifies the protagonist as an offering, but also grants the ability to transform through animal totems. The escape would therefore depend on using the very power associated with the fate they are trying to avoid.
Let overheard conversations prepare the puzzle
The opening conversations were written to make the city’s beliefs audible before asking players to act on them. One resident celebrates the honour of becoming an offering; another worries that the next chosen sacrifice has not appeared and that the gods may become angry. Together, they establish what the protagonist must hide.
In the plaza, a former guard describes being demoted after failing to report unusual light and shadow during an earlier ceremony. Another exchange connects the familiar round moon in the flames with a possible crescent omen. These details were placed before the light mechanism to prepare the later reaction: an unusual projection could draw the guards away from their posts.
Other conversations describe the harvest celebration and the people gathering for it. In this early route, the protagonist’s goal shifts toward bringing the ceremony forward, creating an opportunity to leave as the city’s attention turns to the ritual. Dialogue would supply reasons to change the situation, as well as directions through it.
Discover a power, then need to use it
The bird totem was placed at the edge of the plaza, reached by a narrow wooden bridge. Near it, the protagonist would feel an affinity with the animal figure and want to touch it. Contact would unlock brief flight and hovering, accompanied by glowing serpent scales, a bird-form UI and the newly available Spirit bar.
On the return journey, part of the bridge would collapse, making the newly acquired ability immediately useful. A tutorial prompt would introduce flight and hovering across the gap. The early layout also let the fallen bridge lodge against a small stone ledge as a slope back toward the starting point. A nearby shrine would glow as the player approached, inviting interaction and restoring energy so that a failed attempt would not leave them stranded.
I initially separated transformation from energy use: changing form would be free, while using the power would consume Spirit and require planning. I also considered storing at most two animal forms, replacing an older one when a new form exceeded that limit. I have kept Chapter One to the jaguar and bird; additional forms remain an early idea.
A bird changes how the city responds
Flight would lead to an NPC on a platform across the gap. In bird form, the player would be greeted differently: the NPC admires the feathers and distinctive markings, then remarks that such a bird appearing before the priest ahead of the ceremony would be a good omen. This conversation points the player toward the priest’s elevated position.
The player would then use limited flight to reach a height inaccessible on foot and flap their wings before the priest. Interpreting the bird as auspicious, the priest would decide to begin the ceremony early. The sequence uses the city’s own beliefs to give transformation a role in the escape beyond reaching higher platforms.
I planned to connect this moment to a torch going out and a projection appearing on the opposite stone wall. A closer camera view would reveal the changing sun-and-moon pattern, while a subtle glow would indicate that the wall could be interacted with. Turning its circular sun symbol into a crescent would attract the guards, opening an escape route from above.
Plan an escape with a limited reserve
I initially combined weight, timing and flight in the final crossing. The pressure passage would lower partway, then rise slowly as the player left the plate. Reaching the end would require a jump and a change into bird form. I budgeted about 70% of the available Spirit for that flight in the early plan; I later adjusted the energy reserve while building the level.
A shrine on the city side of the bridge would restore Spirit before the attempt. Falling would return the player to the last activated shrine. The ground form would still need to avoid being recognised by guards, with detection returning the player to the checkpoint; bird form would allow passage without that recognition. Recovery points were therefore planned alongside the risks of spending energy or being discovered.
Use illustrated sequences to reveal what is at stake
The planned opening begins with a mural of a serpent-marked offering at the altar, followed by the figure being cast into a fire. The camera would move close to the protagonist’s scales, pull back to reveal them and then look toward the doorway. Further sequences would mark the first transformation into a bird and the departure from the city into the jungle, possibly contrasting the city and forest in the final shot.
I left room for different ways of staging the story: storyboards could stand in if the animation became too complex. I also considered silhouettes for most townsfolk. In the next stage, I plan to resolve how to frame the priest ordering the fire to be lit and develop the planned scenes into finished animation.
How the early plan relates to the playable prototype
I changed the broken bridge from a walkable slope to an entire branch falling away, because the remaining slope let players bypass flight. I also changed the pressure bridge from the early half-lowered passage to a three-second descent and five-second rise, then worked on keeping the player supported by its moving surface.
I now use a Spirit reserve of 75, draining at 10 per second in bird form for 7.5 seconds of flight. I have also added the priest’s omen, guard warnings and departure, with the crescent able to trigger the guards without a required priest conversation. The illustrated opening and ending are planned for the next development stage. The notes below preserve the early design that informed these iterations.
Level Flow
From a spatial sketch to a numbered journey
I first placed the totem, fragile branch, temple, flame platform, shrines and eastern bridge in one continuous side-view sketch. I then numbered the route on the painted scene: leave the city for the western flight unlock, return through the higher mechanisms and continue east to the exit.
After drawing this route, I continued adding the priest proximity trigger, the crescent response and the guards’ departure in Unity.
Introduce, challenge, then combine
The first chapter revisits the same city after the flight unlock. A route that was previously connected becomes a gap; elevated platforms become accessible; light and bridge mechanisms then ask the player to combine interaction, timing and limited flight.
- 01
Explore the city · Speak to villagers, learn about the ritual and follow clues west.
- 02
Awaken flight · Reach the bird totem and establish a shrine checkpoint.
- 03
Cross the broken return · Use flight and hovering to return over the fallen-branch gap.
- 04
Change the city’s response · Visit the priest as a bird and turn the sacred light to a crescent. The current guard trigger does not require the priest conversation first.
- 05
Clear the eastern route · Recharge, align the jaguar pedestal and wait for the guards to leave; operate the pressure bridge.
- 06
Escape in bird form · Complete the timed crossing and fly toward the jungle.
A route built around recovery
Shrines act as recognisable recovery anchors near demanding traversal. The shrine beside the totem introduces checkpoint recovery, while the extra point by the tent refills Spirit before the eastern bridge without replacing the saved checkpoint.
Checkpoint and mechanism progress survive a respawn during the same play session. Progress currently resets when the game restarts; I plan to add persistent saving in the next stage so players can continue across sessions.
Movement & Spirit
Two forms, two ways of reading the city
Jaguar form uses A/D to move, Space to jump and E to interact. After unlocking the totem, pressing F in the air transforms the character into a bird; pressing F again returns to jaguar form.
Bird form uses WASD for gravity-free flight and hovers when movement keys are released. Flight exposes high routes but requires planning around Spirit. Double jump remains a later unlock rather than a starting ability.
- A / D
- Move as a jaguar
- SPACE
- Jump
- E
- Interact
- F
- Transform after unlock
- W A S D
- Move in bird form
- —
- Release keys to hover
Unlock first, then manage the reserve
Spirit remains locked and empty before the first totem unlock. The current capacity is 75, reduced by 25% from the earlier 100. At a drain of 10 per second, a full reserve supports 7.5 seconds of continuous bird-form flight.
Checkpoint shrines refill Spirit and set the respawn point. Respawning restores unlocked Spirit. The tent point refills only. The totem unlocks the ability; repeated totem interaction currently gives guidance rather than a refill.
Environmental Puzzles
The return bridge falls away
I found that players could still jump straight across after the branch broke, bypassing the place where flight was meant to be used. I considered increasing the angle of the broken branch and also proposed letting the entire branch fall into the chasm, so that an ordinary jump would no longer be enough.
The current prototype uses the full branch fall. The walkable slope left by the earlier version is removed, leaving an actual gap that requires the unlocked bird form to cross. A nearby shrine provides recovery and another opportunity to try. The current gap is approximately 6.57 Unity units.
A flame changes the meaning of light
Each nearby E interaction makes the painted flame sway and advances the projected light through Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Half Moon and Crescent. The projection and connecting beam transition smoothly while the player remains free to move.
The crescent aligns one part of the gate puzzle and, after a brief reaction delay, draws the guards from their posts. The jaguar pedestal must also be aligned, and the posts must be clear, before the passage opens. Both forms can operate the nearby flame in the current prototype.
Weight opens a temporary route
Standing on the approach plate in jaguar form lowers the bridge gradually over three seconds. Leaving makes it rise over five seconds; stepping back on reverses the movement from its current angle.
The moving deck supports standing and jumping. Passing under the plate or hovering over it as a bird does not activate the weight sensor. This creates a transition from grounded activation to a carefully timed bird-form crossing.
Art & Presentation
Keep the original protagonist recognisable
I began with hand-drawn character and transformation studies, storyboards, UI sketches and separate environment paintings. I built the city from the mountains, ground, platforms and mechanisms in those layers.
My original protagonist, environment, UI sketches and story planning establish the hand-drawn foundation. Golden fur, blue eyes, broad painted rosettes and warm brush outlines give the jaguar a clear identity against the blue environment.
The eight generated NPC variations follow my original protagonist reference, with jade ornaments, woven cloth, feathers and equipment distinguishing their roles. In Unity, mesh-based idle animation adds breathing, blinking, head and ear movement, and tail sway to the character images.
Build the city in layers
I kept the mountains, city and ground structures, and the totem, platform and bridge elements on separate layers. In Unity, I used those layers for parallax and matched the playable surfaces to the painted route.
Final sprite sheets · A shared painted outline
The earlier jaguar and bird frames left a pale fringe that stood out beside the NPCs. I revised the edges and animation artwork to match their dark brown painted outlines and restrained shading. I kept the jaguar’s golden-orange coat, circular markings and cyan eye, and gave the bird a charcoal body and a short, dark tail.
The final jaguar sheet has six walking frames and six jumping frames. The bird sheet has three transformation frames and a six-frame wingbeat cycle. In Unity, I aligned the jaguar’s feet and pivots, linked the jump poses to ascent and descent, and kept the bird’s body steady as the wings moved. The main scene now uses these two sheets.
The pair of scene captures below shows the redraw beside the existing NPCs and in flight.
Earlier iteration · From footage to Unity
In the earlier version, I brought the walk, jump and jaguar-to-bird footage into Unity as transparent PNG sequences. At that stage, transformation used eight transition frames, followed by a 28-frame wingbeat loop at 12 fps.
When integrating those animations, I aligned their scale and pivots so the jaguar would not suddenly shrink as it jumped. The flight loop still used the source footage, with cropped wing tips and changing ink trails that I wanted to refine. Those observations led to the redraw shown above.
One visual language for information
The Spirit HUD and painted popup panels share turquoise, gold and deep blue. The first long slot below the totem head displays flight energy. The original dialogue frame was later adapted for an upper-screen presentation, while brief ordinary notices retain the centred feather frame.
For the cover, I used an image generated from my original protagonist and environment references, carrying the same palette into a portfolio illustration.
Move dialogue out of the player’s path
To keep the route readable during conversations, I adapted my hand-painted UI into a lower-saturation, translucent dialogue frame at the top of the screen. Its placement keeps the player’s movement area clear and leaves room for the Spirit HUD, while the world remains visible behind the dialogue.
For comfortable reading and a clear sense of who is speaking, I placed the current NPC’s upper-body portrait beside the text, facing into the frame. A gradual fade along the lower edge avoids an abrupt cut-off and keeps the portrait integrated with the painted UI. Players can recognise who is inviting or warning them while reading the conversation.
A restrained night treatment
In this visual pass, I adopted light post-processing: subtly cool shadows, warm highlights, slightly lower saturation and a soft vignette. I added local glow around the shrines and flames, working with the blue, gold and turquoise already in the paintings.
I kept depth of field, motion blur and chromatic aberration off so the moving character and platform edges stayed clear. I left the HUD and dialogue outside the scene’s colour grading. This pass changed the overall light and colour; the individual paintings and animation sequences were left as they were.
Prototype & Iteration
Fix the state transition, preserve the movement
While testing jumping before flight was unlocked, I ran into a problem when pressing F: the character could enter an invalid transformation or overlap a tutorial that locked the controls. The visible pose and the character’s physical movement then fell out of sync.
I changed the transformation entry to check the unlock first. If transformation is unavailable, the jump continues with its existing velocity, gravity and input. I kept the animation on the visual renderer and made the flight prompt non-blocking, so a rejected transformation would no longer interrupt the movement already in progress.
Make the painted world behave as it looks
I aligned the collision of the green platforms, wooden ledges and totem slope with their painted surfaces. I used one-way platforms so the character could land from above while passing through from below and the sides.
For the pressure bridge, I adjusted the support check to account for the platform’s movement, preventing a standing character from being treated as airborne. Once the dynamic bridge and branch took over, I masked their static versions in the background painting.
I adjusted the camera framing to show less empty ground and more of the route. I also revisited texture import and camera settings when movement looked unclear, alongside the parallax work on the background layers.
Keep prompts brief; make consequences explicit
As NPCs and mechanisms filled the scene, I reduced persistent labels to a single nearby interaction cue, E, and limited ordinary notices to about two seconds. This gives the setting room to communicate visually; fuller dialogue opens through proximity and interaction instead of competing with a screen full of names and status descriptions.
Short notices and important conversations serve different purposes. A guard’s expulsion line stays until it is acknowledged, so the return to a checkpoint is explained. The high guard’s report is a short, movement-friendly beat of about 1.8 seconds before departure. The priest’s automatic approach dialogue does not keep repeating once closed.
I also cleared the visible white placeholder frames and an accidental editor icon from the presentation, while keeping the supporting collision and interaction areas in place. I simplified speaker titles to Villager, Guard and Priest so players can identify each role quickly.
Questions for further playtesting
The next playtest will examine whether first-time players can find the totem, understand hovering, recognise refill points and read the pressure-plate rule. I will also evaluate whether the bird’s omen, the crescent report and the guards leaving clearly explain why the route has changed.
Reflection & Next Steps
My first project in Unity
This is my first game project in Unity. At the beginning, I did not understand what colliders, gravity, and movement speed each affected. Through video tutorials, resources shared by other creators, and repeated debugging, I gradually developed a playable prototype.
For example, the character was jumping too high, and I initially did not know whether to investigate gravity or velocity. I kept adjusting and ruling out possibilities until I found the cause and made the movement feel smoother.
Complete the presentation, then test the journey
The next stage will focus on the illustrated opening and ending, the remaining mechanism and exit artwork, and sound. Priest and guard interactions are already connected; I plan to refine their expressions and movement from the existing assets and continue checking the redrawn player animation throughout the route.
I plan to use a full-route playtest to evaluate Spirit timing, platform spacing and the clarity of clues. Further development will also explore how additional forms and double jump could fit Chapter One’s route and progression.