BLOPL (2020)

‘blopl - blob jump’ is a simple arcade-style mobile game that I solo developed and released in April 2020.
The game is available for iOS and on the Google Play Store. It is free to play with no microtransactions.

The game’s loop revolves around collecting ‘Tix’ during gameplay, which are spent on cosmetics for your character. The amount of Tix gained per session is determined by a combination of your score and the number of combos you performed.

Basic Gameplay

The aim of the game is to stay in the air for as long as possible.
Jumps are a finite resource that can be replenished by collecting blobs that are randomly placed around the screen. Once the player’s score reaches a certain amount (no spoilers), new types of blobs will appear that have different behaviours.

The Combo System

While blopl’s gameplay is generally quite simplistic, I wanted there to be some semblance of a learning curve and skill expression to reward players that invest more time into the game. I feel that combos are a prime example of this. Combos are achieved by collecting multiple blobs without jumping. This encourages a risk-reward playstyle where one can make the decision to leave a blob to be lined up for a potential combo later. A combo will also contribute more to your score than if you had collected each blob individually as well as throwing you a couple extra Tix.

Double Jumps

Double jumps are a core part of blopl’s gameplay. Jumping rapidly actually has a compunding effect where your subsequent jumps have more force behind them. This doubles-down on the risk-reward gameplay that blopl encourages. Spending your jumps so quickly leaves you vulnerable but provides far more value for each jump used. With the value of each jump in mind, I set the maximum jumps you can have stored to 4. 4 is the magic number that maintains the tension between getting the most effect per jump whilst managing them as a resource.

Post-Mortem

I confident that I did a good job of implementing systems to blopl’s gameplay that adds a subtle complexity to an otherwise simple concept. While they are not explicitly explained, I feel that players that spend enough time with the game are able to pick up on these mechanics and use them to their advantage. This fulfills my design goal of crafting a reward system for players than invest more time into the game by providing them with tools to improve their performance.

SCRAPTOWN (2019)

Scraptown was my capstone project that I worked on for a semester as a part of my final year of the RMIT Games course.
I acted as the Lead Designer and Lead Programmer.

Scraptown is a cheeky choose-your-own adventure game intended to be played cooperatively between 3-4 people. Your goal is to escape Scraptown. There are a few different ways to do this. It’s up to you and some friends (or strangers) to explore, interact with the locals and perhaps cause some mayhem in order to find your way out.

You can download Scraptown by clicking here.
(Requires an Xbox controller)

Design Pillars

Our 3 pillars of design for this project were as follows:

• This is a social game. It should act as a vehicle for conversation.

• Humour. We want people to laugh.

• Feedback. Make decisions feel like they matter.

The Format

A 3-4 player cooperative choose-you-own adventure… huh?

If you’re a little thrown off by that pitch, I don’t blame you. It’s definitely a strange concept that posed a lot of tough but interesting design challenges throughout it’s development.

Scraptown is intended to be played with 3-4 people, but only requires one controller. As you play, the controller and thusly the final say will be passed around amongst you through prompts that the game provides. For example one prompt tells the players to “pass the controller to whoever would win in a fight“.
These prompts provided a solution for a number of problems we were experiencing when testing the game:

• Passing around of the controller keeps agency up between players in a game where there’s a lot of potential for someone to only pick the options they want because they have the controller.

• Promotes communication, discussion and a sense of rowdyness that appeals to the social aspect to our design.

• Breaks up gameplay in a way which is fun and engaging as players experience the social friction of having to admit things such as “who’s the grumpiest“.

Dialogue, Navigation and Feedback

Scraptown’s basic gameplay loop involves navigating your way around Scraptown’s many places of interest and engaging in conversation with the various NPCs scattered around the map.

Many of the characters you meet change their dialogue based on your actions. If they’ve met you before, they’ll remember it. You can also collect a few items and even recruit some characters to join you on your journey. Sometimes the presence of these conditions will allow for new opportunities. Some more obvious than others. For example, (spoiler alert) if you get beat up by the wimpiest guard in Scraptown, the story spreads and the Bar’s bouncer won’t let you in on the principal that you are “piss weak“.

Being able to see the consequences of your actions is key for players feeling like they have agency in Scraptown’s world. Without it, options feel meaningless and the entire game loses any sense of purpose.

Character Select Screen

A quick character selection screen that lets you choose your character before entering the game.
Your selection controls what model and sprite will display during dialogue and overworld navigation.

The choice of a player character with a bio describing their personality and background we found opens a nice opportunity for roleplaying.

the pit (2019)

Created as a part of my third year in the RMIT Games course.
This was one of 3 ‘Sprints’ where we were given 4 weeks to make a game.

Line of Sight Stealth AI:

For ‘The Pit’ I designed and implemented a relatively lightweight stealth system. If the player is within the field of view of an enemy, a ray is drawn toward the player’s location. There is then a hidden meter that builds if this collides. The speed at which this builds is also varied based on the player’s distance, meaning that if you’re within view but at a distance, the enemy will stop for a moment rather than immediately pursuing you. This gives the player time to quickly duck back out of sight. If the meter is filled, the enemy will start to chase the player.

The last seen location of the player is also stored, so if an enemy loses sight of you they will still aim for that location and attempt to wait you out for a short time before returning to their normal pathfinding.

Segmented Level Generation:

The Pit’s level generation system works off a sequence of room prefabs being loaded.
Each room has a beginning and ending ‘node’ that signifies the joining point for each room so that we can have rooms make any change in elevation and still allow them to line up.