Oscar The Octopus

The concept of Oscar The Octopus was based around the real-life escape of Inky the Octopus from an Aquarium in New Zealand. Inky actually escaped by climbing out of his aquarium when the lid was left ajar. He slithered across the floor, then dived down a pipe which led out to the Ocean.

In Oscar The Octopus the player must escape a lab by using his abilities including climbing walls like a spider and picking up multiple objects.

🖥️ Research and 🖊️Concept Art

The initial idea for the core gameplay loop for Oscar the Octopus: The Great Escape consisted of avoiding being caught and exploring.

The initial design for Oscar the Octopus had a fabric effect, as it was based upon a plush toy. Experimentation was done on Oscar by making adaptation to his eyes, colour and body shape.

The main mechanic for Oscar the Octopus would be to have the ability to climb up like a spider.

There are two main ways in which the Octopus could pick up objects

The first is to make it so the octopus can pick up objects by dragging them over. A keypress toggle could be used for picking up or dropping.
The second option is to make it so when the player makes contact with a pick-up, it will auto pick-up in a similar fashion to how a coin works in Mario.

The octopus/player can't stay on land all the time due to the octopus needing water. Therefore, this introduced the idea of an oxygen meter, meaning that players can't stay on walls all the time. There will be fish tanks around the lab which players use to get their oxygen meter back up.

It was decided to try and find a fishy friend for Oscar which would be in a similar style to Oscar himself. A fish was found on SketchFab which could suit the role.

The initial concept was that the octopus would have to avoid being spotted by the scientist/guards, with red beams indicating where they were looking. In later developments, the scientists and guard were dropped, but the impression of a beam was retained, in that Oscar was pursued by spotlights.

The level design is displayed below:

The escape sequence below show Oscar and his fishy friends escaping from the lab. Oscar finally reaches a paradise beach and a scene is presented where he has fallen in love with another octopus.