Game Prototype - 2025
We wanted to take a literary approach to 'stumbling on stones,' where low-level detail, minutiae, struggle and failure, hubris and arrogance, and snap judgements are essential to the player experience. Hence, the project followed the design pillars of having:
Achieved through four gameplay loops (right), players will pay attention to resource, combat, network, and crisis management.
START GAME → TUTORIAL.
Example of Crisis Management (Pitfall).
Nearing END GAME (Beetle Hill destroyed).
The RTS arena underwent four revisions over the course of two days. The map encourages players to:
Creating a smaller and concentrated arena.
Focused on the emerging ground pitfall mechanic, leading to dynamic path formation.
Environmental Art - integration.
This RTS prototype, as seen through gameplay (loop below), was created through the following elements:
Queen ANT-oinette: a player controller acting as a traditional RTS camera, and a play on the Napoleon archetype. Players will have to find a balance between ant volume and Navigation/Combat towers (below).
Carpenter Ants: hatched at your base, they carry resources (funds) from piles back to your base. Carpenter networks act as a 'wall' and are empty-handed until they reach a Resource Node.
Bullet Ants: more expensive to hatch at your base, they defend Combat Towers, your network line by attacking enemies (Beetles), and are the only ant to attack enemy bases.
Ant Hill: defending home base. The hill is where players can hatch ants, Carpenters deposit funds, and the target where enemies (Beetles) ultimately attack.
Beetle Hill: enemy base. Defeated by Bullet Ants on the network line.
Navigation Towers: acting as a network (pheromone) line, all ants will follow the closest paths between towers and arena elements, including Resource Nodes and your and enemy bases. Acting as an RTS wall-building mechanic, the strength of lines/'walls' to block enemies is reliant on the volume of ants available at a particular section or the health of the overall system. As an emergent player system, you will need to be strategic in system placement, flow of ants, resource management, and dynamic/responsive strategy. Note that players or environmental hazards can create isolated network systems.
Combat Towers: upgradable from Navigation Towers, Combat Towers can host 5-10 Bullet Ants to attack nearby/approaching enemies.
Resource Nodes: themed as seed piles, players rely on their connection via Navigation Towers to their base for a consistent income to hatch more ants and build/upgrade towers.
Pitfalls: randomly emerging between Navigation/Combat towers on the network line, Pitfalls will consume and drain systems' resources by killing ants in their path if unnoticed by players. Note that arena design creates pinchpoints where Pitfalls can spawn, drastically increasing the need for player adaptability and use of alternate paths when exploring new areas.
Small Beetle: designed to drain the system network, Small Beetles prioritize eating small ants travelling on network lines. Players can avoid this danger by generally increasing the number of ants or allocating more Bullet Ants to travel away from Combat Towers onto the network line.
Large Beetle: designed to behave aggressively, Large Beetles prioritize attacking Combat Towers, network lines, and the Ant Hill. Players can avoid this danger by prioritizing Combat Tower development and pulling Bullet Ants away from network lines.
Within a playtested, balanced, and rubber-banded match, the gameplay loop challenged players to balance the holistic volume of and specific populations of Carpenter/Bullet ants, the placement, destruction, and scrutinization of the network system surrounding Navigation/Combat towers, the utility and number of Bullet Ants occupying various Combat towers, pushing forward and pulling back network lines to new and previously explored areas and Resource nodes based on network capabilities and system safety, adapting to emerging environmental hazards and enemy strategy (based on network growth), withstanding Beetle (enemy) attacks, and building a network capable of sending enough Bullet Ants to defeat the enemy base (win game).
In the release, rubber-banding is reliant on the number of towers created. A future design/implementation consideration and improvement would be to attach rubber-banding to the number of ants alive to avoid the exploit of rapidly growing an ant population with a small network, then making a fast push toward the enemy hill.
The goal was to create a dynamic, player-emergent system where players rely on hubris, reaction, and strategy to win. Noted through playtesting, matches lasted for an average of 10 to 20 minutes, with high retention and playthrough.
Game Prototype - 2025
Game tutorial, which, through framing and staged elevation changes, forces players to focus sightlights on crouching tutorials, platforming segments, alternate pathways and secrets, and key environmental block-ins.
Featurettes of Project REDUX's game jam slice. This prototype sees players trek deep into the inner bodily workings, upgrading gear to new areas, and being challenged by environmental hazards. Design focused on coercive hallways that encouraged players to advance and solve simple room-shifting puzzles.
Additionally, this prototype included minor player progression, allowing players to unlock doors and increase their speed with their axe.
All materials and textures were hand-painted to give a organic and early 2000s feel to this game. Below is an high-definition screenshot displaying a standard challenge room hallway with light platforming elements.
Since the environment is thematically in the dark, lighting was crucial for players to indicate where/what they can interact with and navigate. For example, see the general lighting, glowing pearl (1/4 left), glowing hallway (center), and player-lit objects (interactive axe on the right, and bone for close collision on the left).
Game Prototype - 2024
Following an "obstacles create the path" theme, the primary design pillars of this game were to:
Players must navigate a cocktail bar while balancing drinks and managing thirsty/disruptive patrons. Following the theme and beyond social commentary, the Frog patrons create a physical obstacle that changes player movement flow, as well as an interactable that players can strategically destroy (pushing/hitting). However, Player combat must be strategic in,
Themes of chaos and multitasking are highlighted by a unique (and intentionally difficult) control scheme that utilizes an Xbox controller and a two-button gamepad in each hand (below).
The game arena is designed to ensure proper flow between player movement and the frog's AI pathing while maintaining the theme of a speakeasy bar.
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