A cool spin on platforming

Hey all, I wanted to share some information on a platformer I’m working on developing. This is the first game I’m working on so it’s not going to be anything significant in scope, but it should provide a decent spin on the traditional platformer and should be a short and sweet experience that anyone can pick up and play and enjoy. I’m one person developing this whole game by the way, so I’m doing the art, the level design and the game all myself!

What’s the concept of this platformer?

The game I’m developing is a short platformer that has futuristic elements (and a futuristic setting). The story of the game will revolve around the protagonist in this futuristic society going through levels to track down a former friend, now corrupted by a mysterious power, to bring this former friend to justice. This former friend’s power allows them to teleport across the material world in a flash and lets them dematerialize terrain on a whim. The protagonist has an equal but opposite power to this former friend. This power lets the protagonist materialize platforms and walls to allow them to traverse terrain. It also lets the protagonist gain access to secrets hidden throughout the world.

Using these powers, the protagonist must traverse through the world that their former friend is manipulating and confront them to bring them to justice, and in the process uncover the truth behind the two equal but opposite powers.

Scope of the game

Since this is my first game, the scope of this game will be fairly small, it’s not going to be anything massive. Currently, I expect my game to lean more towards having fewer levels that last longer, however, it’s entirely possible that my game could have more, shorter levels, I haven’t completely nailed down what level design paradigm I want to use just yet. As for how long I want the game to take to beat, right now my ballpark is around 1-2 hours to beat from start to finish.

Target audience

My intended target audience for this game are people of all ages who enjoy platformers. My hope is that this target audience will enjoy the little spin on platforming that my game will offer. The art style will be primarily pixelated since it’s easy to design.

(An attempt at) concept art

Here’s some concept art I’ve drawn for the game, it should give a general idea of how the materialized platforming will play out in practice. This is not meant to be indicative of how the final product will look but rather a glimpse into how the materialized platforming could potentially play out as well as initial designs for things like level art or sprites. Please forgive my hand drawn art, I’m not the best at art!

Concept art showing the protagonist on a platform generated by their power, allowing them to cross the gap that they normally couldn’t jump over
Another example, showing how both platforms and walls can be materialized with the protagonist’s power, allowing them to not only reach an elevated height, but wall jump off a materialized wall to reach the top of the cliff.
An example of a potential secret that the protagonist can find in the levels of the game.
A preliminary design for the protagonist.

Timeline

Unfortunately, I do not have a timeline set yet, as this is my first game and I do want to ensure that this platformer meets a great bar of quality. However, I do ultimately want to do my best to ship this platformer when it’s ready to be shipped.

Tools used

I used the following:

  • Piskel, to create the sprites for the secret and the main character’s sprite. (https://www.piskelapp.com/)
  • Pixilart, to create the sprite based background of one of the concept arts, used at the top of the post (https://www.pixilart.com/)
  • GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) to overlay the main character sprite on the sprite based background (https://www.gimp.org/)