Ballistic

Ballistic is a high speed parkour game. You're participating in a competition to see who's the fastest. Compete in a bunch of disciplines & master them all by becoming the fastest. [WIP]

Early Demo

Summary

This is my first game that I'm going to release on steam. Before this I uploaded everything to itch.io. Publishing a game on steam brings a whole lot of new challenges and a new bar with it. This is still a work in progress, so there's no figures to back the game up. Playtests so far have been very positive, with this being my best game yet.

I've made a few videos on this game before, every time with a whole new bunch of skills. This has led to the game being restarted multiple times, but I've gotten to a point where I'm ready to complete it. Devlog Series.

First Steam Game

I've been working on this project off & on for 2 summers now. With plans to finally publish it by the end of this year.

This is my first game that I won't release for free on itch.io, which brings a whole lot of challenges with it.

Challenges

When releasing a free game bugs are not an issue. You also don't have to get super detailed with the design.
Just having 1 solid mechanic is enough. For a big game like this a lot more has to be thought out.
For this project I have to think a lot more about player experience. From game feel to settings.

Level Design Struggles

In the first version of this game the level design was very simple. All platforms were on a 2 dimensional plane, going forwards or up.
This limits the amount of levels you can make without introducing new obstacles every time very limited. To solve this I had to do a LOT of iteration on the level design.

I don't have much to show off yet, since it's still very early. But levels will now have walls. Which can have things like shortcuts, tnt & other stuff.

With the orginal level design you could only improve your timing & angles, now you can even improve your route. Taking inspiration from a minecraft minigame.

Medals

When playtesting I found that people didn't tend to try and get as fast a time as possible. Until I showed them my score.
Which is when the competitive nature that I was trying to appeal to came out. That's why I designed medals, to give people goals to strive for.

Coins

One thing I learned from my Egg Parkour Game is the value of coins in platforming games.

They are a great way to give more experienced players an extra challenge.
Thus allowing for greater replayability.

Unlike my Egg game, lots of coins to collect wouldn't work. Since the goal is to complete the level as fast as possible. So every level only has 3 big coins. The perfect amount. Enough to force the player to find new better routes, while not being overwhelming in any way.

Marketability

From the start I had to have not just fun, but also marketability in my design. How a game plays is just as important as how it feels when watching a clip of it.
My experience making games for youtube videos helps a lot with this.

Marketing a video on youtube is difficult. You're trying to make a game that you can describe in a way that will get people to click, with only 60 characters & a static image.
After that you've also got to keep people hooked for long enough so they stick around. This is almost exactly the same as with marketing on other platforms.

Skills Used

Unity

Physics Simulation

Game Design

OOP

MVP

User Experience

Substance Painter