Development Process I

The initial goal for this project was to create a game focused on combos, like the combo-based runner Downwell. To begin, I designed a rough prototype in Unity that would allow the player (at that point just an orange block) to move with a joystick, jump on enemies, and slam down on enemies. Slamming down on an enemy would allow the player to jump again, or would bounce the player back up, depending on what I was trying. I wanted to perfect game-feel before working on additional elements such as story and animations, because I wanted a solid foundation for the game. During my attempts to perfect the feelings of movement and jumping, I came across a bug: when the player touched the ground, they would be stuck in an infinite jump until they touched the screen again. This acted like a reversal of gravity, and I liked it.

Initial game concept

Initial Playtesting

To test whether others would like it, I designed two levels: one to highlight the abilities of the current platformer, with jumping and slamming, and another to highlight the potential of the gravity-flipping option. The results were mixed. Many liked the slam mechanic, and thought the gravity option could be included as a part of the game. My playtesters also recommended that the enemies have an increased size.

Development Process II

While playing my prototype, I realized that getting combos and jumping on enemies was slow. I compared my movement to the movement found in Downwell: while the player can jump and move in either direction in Downwell, the pressure of moving down is always present, and the player cannot move back up once the screen scrolls; movement is fast-paced in the vertical direction, with some leeway, while the horizontal direction had a lot of freedom. To emulate this feeling for my combo-based game, I decided to make it a runner. I made it so the player would always be moving to the right, and exchanged jumping for gravity reversal in order to allow the player to have more control over where to move.

Near the beginning development of my game, I knew I wanted to have random level generation. I tried various ways to develop levels, including procedural generation using tilemaps. After discussing my ideas, however, and looking at the amount of time I had left, I decided to make layouts that would be randomly picked from. I started with horizontal parallel platforms that acted as the bounds between which the player could alter gravity. After adding this, I added various obstacle patterns that could be picked using this.

Ideas for stage layouts

More Playtesting

Playtesters liked my combo game’s pivot into a gravity-turning endless runner. They thought it was fun and would be an enjoyable game when developed more. There were suggestions for more level generation, additional enemy types, and a greater handle on combos for the player. Before taking many of these suggestions into consideration, however, I needed to focus on an aspect of my game that I had been neglecting: polish.

Sound Effects, Sprites, and Animation

As a team of one, it was ultimately up to me to make decisions for gameplay mechanics, code implementation, story, sprites, sounds, animations, and external work such as a trailer and the website. This was a lot to handle, so I had decided to focus on what I could at one time, starting with gameplay.

Initial design for Noselor, the main character

I started fairly late on adding a story to my game, mainly because I did not want the story to limit the gameplay. Each time I sat down to draw some concept art, however, it inspired the direction of my game. I created a character with a giant nose that I decided would become the main character, Noselor. The decisions made to create the character and scene made the gameplay make sense, and each played off the other. I used this to develop the idea of a snot meter, which would fill as the player collected the collectibles, and would provide a use for combos: with a high combo, the snot meter would fill faster.