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Game concept
For this game jam, the theme was bubbles. We decided to make a multiplayer team battle platformer. 2 teams of 2 players try and shoot bubbles to capture their opponents to then push them into the stage hazards and expend their teams' lives. We wanted to make a game that had a simple concept with an easy to learn gameplay while having a good amount of replayability.
Each player has the same abilities, they can double jump, dash horizontally (also while in the air), create a melee strike type attack that pushes bubbles around them away and finally, fire bubbles in front of them. A player has to be hit by multiple bubbles before being trapped in one. While being trapped, they can no longer move and will start to slowly float up. The bubbles all have a timer, but can combine with each other to grow in size and reset the duration.
The melee strike allows you to push opponents trapped in bubbles while they can’t move. Depending on where you are in relation to the bubble will determine which direction the bubble will fly. If you hit an ally trapped in a bubble you will help them to break it earlier to save them.
My Role
For this project I was the main designer on the team. When working on small scale project like games for a jam, I will tend to try and create something that is quite easy to understand and pickup. This is to make it as accessible as possible for other people to enjoy and understand the essence of the game as quickly as possible.
We bounced around different interpretations of “bubble”, but ended up settling with the more simple and common water bubble idea. One person on the team enjoys the ideas of multiplayer games for these types of events, so I suggested the idea of the multiplayer platformer party style of game. Some games that inspired us were Super Smash Bros, Tower Fall, and Samurai Gun.
I was the combat designer and worked on creating a fluid and snappy, but importantly chaotic combat experience. Figuring out the timing and physics on the bubbles in combination with the hitbox and interactions of the strike attack were very interesting.
I was one of the main level designers and made 2 out of our 3 stages.
