Magnetic Rays
My first 3D project. A small open world platformer where you swing through a city by attracting yourself to metallic objects. As you play you learn how your abilities work, which will allow you to get to new places if you're clever.
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Designing for skill and puzzles
I've always been interested in combing puzzle elements with more skill based gameplay. I llike the satisfaction of figuring something out, but I also like the feeling of moving fast using my skills. I think this game does a good job of balancing these two feelings. You fly through the city but there isn't any threat of death if you're bad at it. And also, to get the collectibles you'll need to understand how your abilities work and figure out a way to use them with your environment.
Level up the player, not the character
I've always liked the idea of making games in which the player has a chance to see how much they've changed since they started the game. After you got all of the important collectibles a new collectible appears where you first started the game. Even though nothing about the game has changed, the player now knows things that they didn't know at the start. It's not their character that has leveled up, it's the player themselves. Being able to see through walls, and push cars. With these abilities they realize that there was a puzzle from the beginning that will allow them to get to the final zone of the game. I also wanna give players a sense of discovery, and discovering something new in a place you thought you already knew is a great way to do so. I love the idea of making players discover things in places they think they already know since it makes the discovery more rewarding and makes the world feel bigger.
A friend made the music for the game. He made different versions of the same track so that I could implement a dynamic music system that evolves as you get more collectibles or get to new areas.
Helping out the player
I didn't want to force players to have perfect reflexes to swing through the city. This is why I made it so that you can enter bullet time if the hold space while in the air. Another more subtle feautre that helps players aim while in the air is that if you hold the button to be attracted to a piece of metal you will automatically connect to the first piece of metal you aim at. This helps keep the fun of swinging through the air while making it more accesible.
