- Player objectives
The players main objectives are to move and platform around the environment and collect all golden coins in the given environment. This is done through exploration around the environment and through platforming challenges to get from one location to another. - Game mechanics
Player Movement Mechanics
The player can walk/run around the environment with standard movement controls on the ground and can jump into the air for vertical movement. While in the air, a marker showing off where the player is in relation to the ground can be seen so the player knows the trajectory and destination of their jump.
While in the air, the player can press a button to quickly shoot back down to the ground wherever the marker is showing. This can help with precision platforming and quick traversal.
A button can be held down to transform the player into a physical ball. While the player is a ball, going up hills is much slower but traveling downhills lets them move much faster than they normally would. This gives the player an extra sense of flow while moving and allows for faster more on the fly gameplay. While in the air if the player hits a wall, the player will bounce off of it in a different direction at the same speed the ball was traveling. This will help to differentiate playstyles from the ball mechanics to the on foot mechanics as well as keep gameplay momentum up.
Collection Mechanics
When in a close proximity to collectable coins, they will start to slowly gravitate towards the player, causing them to move. This makes collecting them easier and that precision contact is less of a factor in the core gameplay loop.
- Characters and key objects
Characters:- Main player controlled the character.
- Key Objects:
- Collectable coins
- Environmental Props
- Game world and setting
Game takes place in a single city block containing buildings and houses. The block is surrounded by a fence and situated on a large body of water. The layout and city design is reminiscent of a skate park, meaning curved edges connected to walls/buildings and floors and several sloped gullies. This will help core gameplay flow together with all parts of the environment and the art bleeding into one another, allowing gameplay to keep up a constant momentum.
- Gameplay highlights/hooks/features
Appeal 1: Simple to learn and play.
The core gameplay loop is easy to pick up and enjoy the game feel of, being intentionally reminiscent of nostalgic and simple games and gameplay styles that should put the players mind at ease and let them relax and enjoy the escapist experience.
Appeal 2: Flowing Control scheme
Once Mastered the traditional gameplay, the player similarly can learn, experiment with, and appreciate the quick physics based gameplay for an added layer of depth and challenge. The free flowing physics of the gameplay allows the player to feel the momentum of their movements and interactions with the world in a much more cohesive and tangible way when contrasted with the traditional movement style.
- Intended audience and how you will appeal to it
Ages 7-16. All ages will enjoy the simplistic but enjoyable world design and traversal mechanics whereas the older audiences will latch onto the more in depth physics based traversal the game has to offer.
- Game style/player experience
The Game Genre is a 3D Platformer. The Player experiences the gameplay through the traversal of the main game world and through that traversal, they better understand and teach themselves the game mechanics and level layout.
- Art style description
Simplistic and blocky style intentionally representative of iconic symbolic landmarks. Very little texturing but instead, confident eye catching flat colors that show off what an object is in comparison to other objects around it. World design should primarily use orange/red/dark tones to contrast with the player character. This will further let the main character pop out of the environment and let the player’s eyes focus on their movement through the level.
I really like your idea of combining a city block with a skatepark for smoother movement and gameplay. I look foward to seeing how that part of the game turns out. Is there a story or motive to the character you play as collecting the coins?
Presently there isn’t a story planned per-say other than the context of “It is a Video Game” which is why the collectables (at least for right now) are the most iconic/basic forms of gameplay collectables. Most of my time in the post production stage was coming up with the map/gameplay mechanics and how they would flow together and be implemented in the project.
I think this is a very cool idea mechanically! I love how much thought you’ve put into the mechanics while also keeping the scope quite small. I’m wondering if we could see some concept art for the world? I’m not able to clearly envision it right now and would love to see it!
I have a map of the world which will be posted alongside the level design project. The world design would be representitive of the large blocky buildings visible in my moodboard with plain flat colors and curved edges towards the top and bottom of the buildings.
I love the little guy- he looks like one of the goo guys from adventure time !! The curvy building is also a really cool idea, it adds some symmetry between your character and the environment he is in. Do you have any concept art for the environment? I would love to see how it feels, as its a little difficult to envision at the moment.
The Mood board was meant to give a general sense but the map design was supposed to look like a skate park with elongated features as well as traditional environment/house like features textured over it. The idea is to be reminiscent of a familiar environment for the player to explore while at the same time, service the gameplay with plenty of sloped edges to traverse and move around in while also subliminally keeping the idea of a skate park in the back of the players mind to push the player to enjoy and use the traversal mechanics.
I don’t know why but your concept sketches remind me of chibi Robo for the character and the environment reminds me of Toon Town. Both of those would fit nicely for your intended audience. What inspired your environment design choices.
Environment design was based off age range appeal in what would the target audience be familiar with as well as what would service the core gameplay loop the best and allow the player to seamlessly and flowingly traverse the world.
Love the concept! I really like the mechanic of being able to slam back down to the ground in your current location, I think it could make for some interesting platforming.
How’re you thinking the transition from humanoid to ball will look?
The transition isn’t necessarily too complicated. If you look at the concept art you can see the ball form is essentially just the players head but a little bigger. Likely the limbs/body/little doinker on the top would just be sucked into the head as it would grow slightly larger than normal.
I like how you combined the different characters to make your own unique character. I also like your direction of art style which seems very fitting for the type of game you are going for. I am wondering how you plan on making the coins move towards the player and whether it will be affected if the player is in human or ball form, or even their current speed?
So long as the player is very close to the coin, they will slightly move towards them. The mechanic was inspired by old collectathon games where collectables shimmied towards you so long as you were close to them. No matter what form the player is in they will still have this effect.