Game Concept Log

KIT109 Assessment 2 Game Concept Log

Title: wow I can’t believe it’s another jump platformer

Concept Statement: You are on a quest to get to the top of each level. You manoeuvre your character using abilities such as double jump, dashing all the way to the top! What’s the challenge? Only those with a determined mindset and strategic thinking and can maneuverer through all the difficult terrains such as the slippery ice terrain and in space of low gravity. Now remember adventurer, don’t fall. There are no checkpoints.

Genre/Category:

Precision Platformer: it would require good mechanical skills and timing to maneuverer through the platforms

Indie: The game is an indie style graphic game with minimalistic pixel sprites and art

2D: Game is two dimensional and is a side scroller

Hardcore/difficult: the game would provide a challenge to players and is quite punishing if you fall

Single Player: Only one player 

Concept Creation process/area: The idea of the game was inspired by hardcore vertical indie platformers such as “Jump King” developed by Nexile and “Getting Over it by with Bennet Foddy” developed by Bennet Foddy.

The main concept of both of these games are the goals are quite similar, you have to get your character to top of the level carefully and skilfully. Both of these games feature a linear level/map design, meaning there are no individual levels. Because of this linear design, there are no checkpoints/save points and falling down would be quite punishing as there is a possibility you may fall all the way to the bottom.

 Because of this design, it would create a huge sense of challenge for the player as the player would need to think carefully about how to approach the next platform in order to not fail and fall. To complete a section, the player would need to have developed precise and technical skills and mechanics in order to successfully move through the platforms.

 Both of these games are quite subtractive, they feature only one goal – get to the top in the shortest amount of time possible but have one mechanic players would need to master. In Jump King the mechanic would be you would your jump key like a spring and the height that you would jump would be determined on how long you hold the jump key. The mechanical skill is the timing of the key as it is not as easy as it looks. The physics in Jump King is not linear, the velocity and gravity of the player would differentiate through different times of the jump making it hard to master.

 For my jump platformer game, I wanted something very similar where the player would develop the skill over the course of playing and would require skilful mechanics and careful thinking about how they would approach each platform. This would be implemented through double jumping and correctly timing the jump on the edge of the platform.

 Another factor of this game I thought about was RNG. In some competitive speed running games RNG contributes to a big factor is a run is considered successful or not. Because of this I wanted to remove RNG factors such as a zone that could assign a mystery physics value like higher/lower speed or you get a higher jump for a certain amount of time.

 Audience: The audience of this game would cater to hardcore or even casual gamers of any age and gender who are looking for a challenge. This game would appeal to this audience because every level would progressive be a different challenge and would implement different and the graphic style of the game would be quite neutral and friendly looking/soft to cater a wider group of audience such as young children to adults.

 Competitive analysis: Through looking at the list of precision platformer games on steam < https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Precision%20Platformer/#p=0&tab=TopSellers >, an overwhelming majority of the games are created by indie game developers and no triple AAA games/developers having a presence in this genre.  This genre is quite niche, but it is precision platformer genre is very popular according to statistics on SteamDB.

 Here are the estimated number of owners for the top 5 games on Steam according to SteamDB:

-       Geometry Dash : 2,000,000 – 5,000,000

-       Celeste: 1,100,000 – 1,200,000

-       Jump King: 200,000 – 500,000

-       Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy:  2,000,000 – 5,000,000

-       Super Meat Boy: 6,500,000 – 6,600,000

 From looking at the statistics, this genre is very popular with players and is also very popular on video platforms such as YouTube and Twitch.

Example: Jump King

 From this graph on steamDB, the game peaks at 70,000 concurrent views on twitch and generate hundreds of thousands/millions of views on YouTube. This is because the entertainment value is created from people struggling and failing to progress or watching skill players speed run a competitive game.

I believe that my game would appeal and perform similarly to this audience as it is based on hardcore platformers and mechanical skills such as timing jumps and moving consistently through platforms to get a faster time.

Concept Art: The art style that I wanted to implement would be 2d pixel graphics. This style of art would appeal to many people for its simplicity but also detailed graphics. This would also make it consistent with many other popular precision platformers such as Celeste and Jump King.

For the concept art, I wanted the style to be friendly and calm. Something that is bright and colourful that could appeal to younger audiences but could also very much appeal to adults.

Examples:

Sunny Land Assets< https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/characters/sunny-land-103349 >

<Nature pixle art https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/environments/nature-pixel-art-base-assets-free-151370 >

Game Treatment/Features:

Player:

Basic Movement (WASD)

Jump and Double Jump (space)

Dash ability

Different trails and particles

World:

Multiple types of terrain such:

-       Normal terrain (normal standard physics)

-       Ice terrain (the platforms become slippery/ less friction)

-       Moon/space terrain (lower gravity)

Level Design / platforms:

-       Platforms are designed to be tricky and hard to manoeuvre such as ‘head bangers’ where you have to time jumps

-       Some platforms you have to double jump too

-       Some platforms may require a certain speed such as a ramp jump

-       Moving/rotating platforms

-       Object spawners such as boulders that you would have to dodge

Physics:

-       Fall Multiplier (acceleration increases when falling)

-       Low Jump Multiplier (the longer you hold jump the higher you jump)

References

2019. Jump King. Nexile.

Ansimuz, 2017. Sunny Land. [image] Available at: <https: assetstore.unity.com="" packages="" 2d="" characters="" sunny-land-103349=""> [Accessed 16 April 2021]. </https:>

Black Spire Studio, 2019. Nature Pixel Art. [image] Available at: <https: assetstore.unity.com="" packages="" 2d="" environments="" nature-pixel-art-base-assets-free-151370=""> [Accessed 16 April 2021]. </https:>

Foddy, B., 2017. Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy.

SteamDB. n.d. Steam Database. [online] Available at: <https: steamdb.info=""> [Accessed 16 April 2021]. </https:>