Within Bastet's Cavern
Embedded Files
2D Platformer
My contribution to Within Bastet's Cavern demo
DEVELOPMENT
Within Bastet's Cavern is a game I made for Year 1 Semester 2 of my Games Design course in which we had to pitch and produce a mechanical demo for a mobile phone game.
The criteria were that the game:
• Must be an appropriate game for cellphones
• Have a total development time of under three months
• Use an appropriate resolution and control system
To come up with game ideas, I first researched the key aspects of popular mobile games. I found that the best mobile games were addictive and had easy levels that scaled. Keeping that in mind, I decided to create a 2D Platformer game. I prefer animal characters as they are simpler to design than humans, and since I'm not an expert artist, I created a cat character with a scarf to make it more lively. I intentionally designed the cat without arms to avoid creating a generic character. To give my game more depth, I researched famous cats from history, including Norse gods and Egyptian deities. Ultimately, I chose Bastet due to her striking black and gold colour scheme, which features in the game's logo. In the game, all the cats in the local town have gone missing, and the player must find them all. The search takes place in a cave that houses a cat statue.
When I started developing the game, I designed an introductory cinematic that plays when the game launches. I played a lot of platformer games to understand the mechanics that would work well and I was particularly impressed by Celeste's intro cinematic. It not only sets the tone for the game but also serves as the credits.
bastet.mp4I recently made some changes to my Main Menu to improve its look and functionality. I replaced the plain brown colour with a wood overlay and added a dark brown border to make it more visually appealing. The menu can now be resized as well. Initially, I had planned to use images instead of text for the buttons, to make it more accessible for non-English speakers. However, I couldn't find the right design layout for it.
The menu options in all my games include audio control, but for the new Main Menu, I added two new features. The first one is the "Promote" button, which takes you to a pre-written message on Twitter that you can share with your followers. The second feature was a bit more challenging, involving high scores and fastest times. I had to use floats and ints to record seconds, minutes, and hours individually. To make sure it works properly, I set the fastest completion time to a very large number.
For the other menus, I didn't spend too much time on them. I simply copied elements from the ones I had previously made. Since it was my first time recording time, I made sure to show it in hours, minutes, and seconds, making it easy for the player to read. Additionally, I added a cog icon on top of another one, with one enabling the pause menu and the other disabling it. This way, players can either press "resume" or simply use the cog for ease of access.
When creating the game, I initially had plans to create all the assets and sounds myself. However, I realized that this was a daunting task considering the extra mechanics I wanted to incorporate. As a result, I simplified things to ensure that the game mechanics were the best they could be. I did manage to learn how to create animations and made the cat and cat bell sprites, as well as the UI elements.
This was also my first time designing a game for a mobile platform. Despite the many movement control options available, I believed that a joystick with buttons was the best approach for my game. Although it came with its fair share of bugs, I think it worked out well.
Using tilesets and grids for the first time was also a learning experience. Going forward, I don't think I can create a good level without them. They make the process so much easier and more efficient.
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