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:

• An emergent and dynamic player system,
• Consistent player attention,
• The theme of hubris (expand and retract), and
• Resource management and strategy.

Achieved through four gameplay loops (right), players will pay attention to resource, combat, network, and crisis management.

The RTS arena underwent four revisions over the course of two days. The map encourages players to:

• Complete a formalized tutorial (spawning resource collecting and combat ants and placing navigation and combat waypoints),
• Expand branching paths to the opposite enemy base,
• Use flanking areas to collect additional resources and increase the flow of income, and
• Use flanking areas as alternate paths in case of pinch points (tight walk-ways) being covered with environmental hazards (pitfalls) or enemies.

• Restrained the map size from a traditional RTS size down to a bite-sized play experience
• Created diverging pathways and access to resources
• Created a simple tutorial base (top left) that railroads tower placement.
  
• Hid resource nodes within tall foliage (now cut)
• Allocated mechanic space for water ground hazards (now cut)

• Focused on the emerging ground pitfall mechanic to cut spaces and block pathways, leading to more dynamic path formation
• Further condensed the space after feedback and playtests
• Narrowed line of access to home and enemy bases, focused on the now determined camera angles and lighting.

• Environment art integration (terrain, rockwork, etc.)
• Cut water ground hazard mechanic (due to time)

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, including the number of Bullet Ants occupying various Combat towers,
• push forward and pull back network lines to new/previously explored areas and Resource nodes based on network capabilities and system safety,
• adapt to emerging environmental hazards and enemy strategy (based on network growth),
• withstanding Beetle (enemy) attacks, and ultimately,
• 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 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 (seen within the gameplay video above).

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.

This prototype sees players trek deep into the inner bodily workings, upgrading gear to new areas, and challenged by environmental hazards. Level design focused on coercive hallways that encouraged players to advance to solve simple room-shifting puzzles, complete small platforming activities, and navigating claustrophobic spaces.

Additionally, this prototype included minor player progression, allowing players to unlock doors and increase their speed with their axe.

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.

All materials and textures were hand-painted to give an 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 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).

Following an "obstacles create the path" theme, the primary design pillars of this game were to:

• produce frantic decision making,
• promote left-brain/right-brain feeling gameplay, and
• utilize a unique control scheme.

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,

• creating (or forcing) a path to an objective,
• completing an objective (neutralizing a 'Disruptive Frog'), and
• retain awareness in their surroundings so as not to hit previously served (objective complete) frogs.

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).