ABOUT
Platforming game where the player controls a loving couple that repels and attracts each other. Made by a team of 5 students in 10 weeks.
My tasks:
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Game and level design.
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Gameplay programming.
Game's achievements:
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Won the award for Best Game of the class at the University festival.
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Showcased at IndieDevDay2 event representing the University.
MECHANICS
The player controls two characters that must overcome challenges and puzzles by attracting and repelling each other.
The player can control one character at once, swapping any time they want. They can also attract the other character at will, and repel them upon collision, which helps the player reach high places.
GAME DESIGN OBJECTIVES AND ITERATIONS
One of the main challenges of the game was to make gameplay feel fair while keeping it fun.
Since the characters are hard to control, we realized that a lot of players got frustrated because they died a lot. While we wanted the game to be hard, we also wanted it to be fair. To achieve this kind of game feel, we took the next decisions:
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Remove pixel perfect maneuvers and add helping systems like coyote time.
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Respawn is instant.
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Add a death counter.
The death counter didn't change the controls or difficulty, but added a layer of competivity that improved the engagement from the players. In the first iterations of the game, playtestesters wanted to stop playing at 30 deaths on average, arriving around the 10th level. With the changes, playtesters were engaged and almost all of them got to the last level with 80 deaths on average.
It was curious to see how players that came in pairs to the IndieDevDay2 fair wanted to play the game to beat their friends by getting less deaths in their walkthrough. Adding this feature didn't change the gameplay, but provided the players with an extrinsic motivation to play with their friends. This, coupled with the fact that the game was now more forgiving with the player's mistakes, granted a more accessible and enjoyable experience for everyone.
Walkthrough gameplay of the game
