Late Cake
Game made in seven days for the IndieDevDay Game Jam (2021) with Unity 3D where I participated as Game Designer, Level Designer and Technical Game Designer.
Main goal of the player
You’re in charge of bringing the cake to Bibi’s birthday party, but you’re late! Throw pieces of cake and dodge objects in your way to get to Bibi’s birthday party as quickly as possible. But be careful, you have to get there with at least one!
Main mechanics
Shoot pieces of cake to make your way through the level, being careful not to run out at any point.
Mechanics
- Shoot pie: When player press the fire button, Rabbit will shoot one of the pie piece in a straight line, colliding with the obstacle in that lane or, if there is none, going off-screen. Player cannot shoot if only have one piece of cake left.
- Move vertically: The game has 3 horizontal lanes in which the player can move between them freely using the up or down buttons. When pressing the button, there is a quick animation in which the character moves to that lane (not teleporting).
- Picking up cake: Along the way, the player will occasionally come across a piece of cake, which if collided with, will add one floor to the cake they are carrying.
Difficulties encountered by players:
- Resource management: Player must manage and be aware at all times of how many pieces of cake they have, as running out will be game over.
- Shooting takes away life: Shooting pieces of cake has an advantage and a disadvantage. On the one hand, with these shots you can deactivate various obstacles along the way, but at the same time you are taking away the «lives» you have, and you have to be careful not to run out.
- Obstacle dodging: The player must dodge obstacles to avoid running out of cake, as colliding with an obstacle will cause one to several pieces of cake to fall off (depending on the type of obstacle). Some of these obstacles cannot be dodged, and the player will have to deactivate them by shooting cake.
HUD: There only needs to be a horizontal bar at the top of the scene, showing Rabbit’s progress through the level, as time passes, the bar increases.
Dynamics arising from the mechanics:
- Saver player: This player will try to avoid obstacles as much as possible, accumulating more and more cake and trying to spend as little as possible.
- Shooter player: This player will always be shooting without worrying about saving, but always keeping at least one pie so as not to lose the game.
- Economizer player: There are several obstacles that limit the maximum number of floors the player can carry (upper obstacles), so there will be players that when they reach that maximum, they don’t worry about collecting more cakes.
Pleasures:
- Narrative: Because we are going to create a suspense and a hidden story the player will want to get to the end to discover the outcome.
- Challenge: The whole game is based on completing a challenge, a balancing challenge.
- Humour: Due to the exaggeration of the cake and the visual style, it can provoke some humour.
- Thrill: Due to the difficulty of the challenge, the player constantly experiences the thrill of being on the verge of failing the test.