By Cailean Treloyn

(I hope the formatting isnt too screwed)

Overview

Working Title:

“Escape from the M’lon Factory!”

Concept Statement:

Escape from the M’lon Factory! You are a sentient watermelon, trapped in a watermelon dicing factory and you must escape it. By. Any. Means. Necessary.

Genres:

Platformer, because the character is on a 2D plane affected by gravity and can jump on platforms.

Side-scrolling because the game side scrolls to progress.

Endless, the game has no end unless the player dies.

Comedy, this more a theme than a genre. The game is meant to be silly.

Action, more a theme than a genre. The player escapes by busting through walls, killing workers, and destroying equipment.

Concept Creation Process:

When considering the idea for this project, I was drawn to a funny little interaction with others in the lecture chat of the KIT109 discord server, concerning my use of a gif of being given a melon, and then saying the word ‘Mlon.’ I thought that it was funny, stupidly funny.  

I thought what better way to get motivated for a project by basing it on that idea. My mind went into overdrive producing many crazy ideas, like a fruit beat 'em up, a melon RPG or a melon-style Out Run game. These ideas were more than I could chew, I chose Out Run because I found it the most interesting. It would’ve been one of the hardest to implement, so rather than getting a new idea I decided to simplify the dimensions, going from a 3D/ pseudo-3D plan to a 2D plan. This reminded me of a mobile game called Hill Climb Racing which led to me considering other mobile games and eventually leading to me remember my most played mobile game Jetpack Joyride. Developing the idea, I thought about making a clone where you just have a watermelon hurtling through the air, I then thought I might put a spin on it and make the watermelon sentient. The reasoning for this was I was inspired by games like Carrion and Endoparasitic which had sort of crazy horror and outlandish premise in laboratories/factories but this game would be more PG. I focused on making a clone of jetpack joyride for the basis of my project.

Figure 1: Inspiration for this project. Credit:  (derkzz, 2020)

Figure 2: Subtracting the dimension count from Out Run, reminded me of the mobile game Hill Climb Racing. (Top: Out Run, Bottom: Hill Climb Racing.) (Longplays, 2015) (FingerSoft, 2012)

Figure 3: Taking heavy influence (cloning) from Jetpack Joyride, for mechanics, premise, and gameplay. Also taking influence from Carrion for its absurdity and setting. (Top: Jetpack Joyride Bottom: Carrion) (Halfbrick Studios, 2011) (Evans-Thirlwell, 2020)

Target Audience:

When considering the target audience for this I considered who was interested in the influences I was using. I consider Carrion and Endoparasitic more thematic, so I labelled them as outliers and focused more on the mobile game inspirations. Then thought about what demographics often play these types of games.

The idea with the game is that you can click and play, it does not require a huge time commitment, so the overall player base would be casual. This doesn’t mean some hardcore players won’t try for records/speedruns. But casual is the focus.  

For the demographic I had three major considerations. Which demographic would be the most interested in the idea, who is the largest demographic in the mobile space and who is the most likely to play? Based on premise, focusing on a split between teenagers to young adults (16-24) and kids (below 16) there may be some argument for engagement with the 25 to 34 age range as nostalgia from the early era of mobile games. Roughly giving the game access to around 44% of mobile gamers (MMA, n.d.).

Competitive Analysis and Market Considerations

The mobile market has many different companies vying for player’s time, the mobile games market is incredibly popular in the industry, it makes up around 54% of yearly game market sales. (Pashkov, 2021)  

For this game to be successful, it needs to get players playing and keep players playing. Compared to other titles, say Fortnite mobile or diablo immortal which have complicated control schemes, lots of content and complex systems, which may be good for hardcore players. The aim of this game is to be a fun game that you can pick up and play anytime, taking inspiration from jetpack joyride in terms of aesthetic and simple control schemes it be able to emulate some of its enduring success (Morris, 2023), to give it a low barrier of entry while giving it a competitive edge, with competing players vying for high scores. In summary, the aim for this game is to be quick, simple, and fun to play at any time.

Figure 4: The aim for this game is to avoid complex control schemes, focusing on a select few mechanics. Credit: (Lumb, 2021)

Game Treatment

Description of the game:

You are a sentient watermelon; you must escape the slicing factory. You use simple inputs to manoeuvre across the screen, dodging knives, cutters, and evil worker robots. Be careful not to get cut, you will not survive. But you must survive, you must escape, even if it kills you….

Key Features:

• Manoeuvre in 8 directions, to dodge obstacles!
• Endlessly run towards the exit, its just around the corner!
• Dodge a variety of unique obstacles, each producing their own challenges.
• Enjoy tasty fruit flavoured sprite art, sentient watermelons are the best kind!!
• The game keeps track of how far you get, try, and beat your own personal best, or your friends!
• Find power ups that, juice up your power, giving you the advantages, you need to escape.

Backstory:

The plan is simple, you are a watermelon, you gain sentience and some limbs, escape at any cost from the evil factory that is killing your kind!

Setting:

You are in a factory, that process watermelons.

Game Modelling:

Things needed for the game. Subject to change

Game Scene

Player Object

• Sprite Renderer, for displaying sprites.
• Transform, for dealing with position.
• Collision2D, for collisions.
• RigidBody2, for physics
• Animator for sprites

Player Scripts

Movement, deals with 8 way movement, while also keep the player moving forward always.

KillonHit, handles collisions with obstacles.

PowerUps, handles powerups applied to player.

Factory/Floor/Roof Object

• Sprite Renderer, for displaying sprites.
• Transform, for dealing with position.
• Collision2D, for collisions.
• Animator, for animated floors/changing floors.

Factory Floor Scripts

• Movement, deals the scene endlessly going.
• Sprite Changer, changes at set intervals.

Spawner Object

• Transform, for pos.
• Movement, deal with scene movement
• Spawner, randomly spawns obstacles and power ups.

Spawner Scripts

End Game Listener

• Transform, for pos
•  

End Game Scripts

• Checks for player death, ends the game.

GameController

• Transform, for pos
• HighScore/Distance Tracker stores if higher.
• Dealer, deals with difficulty, amount of enemies/obstacles and power ups

·         GameController Scripts

Tracker Enemy Prefab

• Transform, for pos
• Collider2D
• Animator

Tracker Scripts

• Movement Script
• Tracker Script (Y)
• Collision Script

Wall Enemy Prefab

• Transform, for pos
• Collider2D
• Animator

Wall Scripts

• Collision Script

Slammer Enemy Prefab

• Transform, for pos
• Collider2D
• Animator

Slammer Scripts

• Collision Script
• Movement Script

Menu Scene:

                Start Game Button

• Sprite Render
• Transform
• Sprite Render
• Transform

• Scene Changer Script
• Scene Changer Script

Highscores Game Button

Assets and SFX:

Player Sprites

Tracker Sprites

Slammer Sprites

Wall Sprites

Factory Sprites

Background Sprites

Power up sprites

Ambience SFX

Walking SFX

Explosion SFX

Game UI buttons, fonts.  

Concept Art:

Figure 5: Preliminary Character Sketch of the Sentient Watermelon. Not Pixelated.

Figure 6: Rough Idea of pixel art'

Figure 7: Rough Idea of a scene, not the obstacle, the distance recorder, and a menu button in the top left.

(i hope you enjoyed)

References

derkzz. (2020, October 30). Majima Melon GIF. Retrieved from tenor: https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/majima-melon-yakuza-gif-18996774

Evans-Thirlwell, E. (2020). Carrion review - an unforgettable monster chews its way out of a solid Metroidvania . Retrieved from Eurogamer: https://www.eurogamer.net/carrion-review

FingerSoft. (2012). Hill Climb Racing. Retrieved from Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fingersoft.hillclimb&hl=en_US

Longplays, A. R. (2015). OutRun Longplay (Arcade). Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELUl-cAtUIE

Lumb, D. (2021, April 30). I’ve played Diablo Immortal: how Blizzard’s dark action RPG. Retrieved from TechRadar: https://www.techradar.com/news/ive-played-diablo-immortal-how-blizzards-dark-act...

MMA. (n.d.). Myth Busting: Mobile Game Demographics. Retrieved from MMA: https://www.mmaglobal.com/research/myth-busting-mobile-gaming-demographics

Morris, I. (2023, March 21). Mobile Masterworks: Jetpack Joyride. Retrieved from pocketgamer.biz: https://www.pocketgamer.biz/feature/81120/mobile-masterworks-jetpack-joyride/

Pashkov, S. (2021). Video Game Industry Market Analysis. 41. Retrieved from https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/497979/e1700994ThesisRevised.pdf?s...

Studios, H. (2011). Jetpack Joyride. Retrieved from Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halfbrick.jetpackjoyride&hl=en...