Games Designer
Design Notes:
I wanted the game to be extremely simple and easy to grasp. The challenge comes from having to control two objects at once, requiring multitasking and a certain degree of forward thinking.
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Each blocker controls identically. It can move either clockwise or anticlockwise around the central point. In can move up and down through three fixed orbital lines to avoid the other blocker or change its speed (while its speed does not actually change the distance it has to travel around the centre does).
Each blocker rotates around the centre and its input remains constant regardless of where it is in its orbit. Thus, when it has moved to the opposite hemisphere than the one it started in, the controls will appear to perform backwards, adding a further brain addling challenge. The thumbstick equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your stomach!
The visuals are simple and vibrant, intending to add interest to the background and complement the colour matching aspect of the game but without being too distracting to the player.
And of course no arcade game is complete without a catchy, tetris-inspired, earworm of tune that burrows into you head incessantly as you play!
The music also ties into the game design: to accentuate the fast paced nature of the game, and get you to hop right back in and try again immediately after failure, the music is never interrupted; it merely slows down only to zip right back up again.
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The difficulty curve for this game was a fine line to craft. The procedurally generated enemies could not be spawned completely randomly or the player would soon be in a position where blocking two onscreen enemies was not just difficult but physically impossible.
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To arrive at a satisfying flow within the project's short time frame I:
Made an even number of spawn points, spaced equidistantly around the circumference of the player space.
Spawned enemies with a randomised positional offset from a randomly chosen spawn point, but never the last spawn point used and never the spawn point directly across from it.
Spawned enemies with a 75% chance of being the opposite colour to the previous one.
Slowly increased spawn rate at certain score milestones, and increased the randomised offset of a spawned enemy’s speed
While not perfect, I found this system almost always prevented impossible situations from occurring before the average player had already failed due to their own mistakes.
Learning Outcomes:
As my first solo made game, I had initially conceived of it as an app for smartphones and intended to port it over once I had prototyped it for PC using my existing knowledge of Unity.
However I found on doing this that the game was considerably more suited to a gamepad or keyboard, where any frustration experienced playing arises from deliberate and considered challenge. Whereas on a smartphone I found that controlling the blockers with one’s thumbs on the screen was
not nearly as satisfying in terms of ease or gratifying physical sensation.
obscured too much of the game from the player’s vision.
In addition, due to its radial nature, the game benefits from a square play space – so that enemies are always spawned equidistant and you have an equal amount of linear space with which to judge its speed and plan your movements accordingly.
