Game developer, Community Manager and More

Hatchoo: Post Mortem

My thought process of the weekend

07 July 2017

The sneeze

When we first got this idea it all depended on whether we could get a good sneeze. Early on we decided that the easiest, cheapest and less time-consuming way would be via the particle system. Only problem was, none of use ever used the particle system.

So my adventure started. Spending a whole day to create a paint like stroke that worked via the particle system.

Level Design

During the weekend we got some show moments.

Show moment 1

During the first show moment we had a quick level and basic versions of our mechanics. At the time, when you pressed A you instantly started the chain part of the level, thus making the level ‘pause’. The mentors brought to our attention that this is a bad design. And they where correct, I mean what be the first thing you do when you enter a level?

I would

• try to run around
• press all the buttons

Show moment 2

During our second show moment, we needed to have a playable build, this was a half day before handing in. so that was good practice anyway. But during that run the mentors could play a fleshed out level.

The big main points they gave were

• The current level was to hard to be the first
• The first needs to basically finish itself

First level

With those points in mind I made the first level.

At first this looks straight forward. But contraire to what the mentor suggested, the first level doesn’t play itself. I did that on purpose. I didn’t want a useless first level, if I could explain more to the player, without making this level harder why wouldn’t I?

I played with the fact that players will start walking around and if they walk close to the ‘fat guy’ he will turn to you.

Now it doesn’t matter in what order they learn the mechanics because they are easy to learn, and you need all 3 of them to finish the level. This is how it looks when you turn the guy a bit.