Working Title:

Cosmodrift

Concept Statement:

Cosmodrift follows a lone protagonist on board a damaged spacecraft, lost in the empty abyss of deep space. While the protagonist's gravity boots are strong enough to stick them to walls while they walk, with the ship’s gravity disabled, every jump turns into a momentous drift from wall to wall. The player must guide the protagonist through puzzles and hazards as they uncover the mystery behind the ship’s destruction, and furthermore, if they will ever return home.

Genre/Category:

Singleplayer, Platformer, Puzzle

Concept Creation Process:

Subtractive design has been utilised in concepting this game idea, with the game concept mostly boiling down to “Platformer without Gravity”. The controls will be minimalistic, with only a need for directional keys, an interact key and a jump key. 

The primary inspiration for the jumping mechanic comes from VVVVVV. In VVVVVV, the player can only move left and right, and if they are on the ground, they can also flip gravity (pictured below). This, while being similar to the mechanic I aim to implement, differs in the finer details. In Cosmodrift, the player will have no control mid-jump, relying solely on planning and foresight when jumping. The other main diference being that in VVVVVV, gravity flipping is only done vertically. In Cosmodrift, the player can drift from any surface, to any opposite surface.

Audience and Competitive Analysis:

The intended audience for Cosmodrift are players who are interested in puzzle games, with the early difficulty tailored towards those with little, or no experience in the genre. I believe this target audience may be interested in this concept primarily because of the simple controls, while the gradual climb in difficulty and the varied sections to explore will entice players who are more familiar with puzzle games, or those looking for a spin on the formula.

As Cosmodrift is an entirely singleplayer experience, the only competitive aspects of interest would be a speedrun mode and hidden collectibles. The game would benefit from a speedrun mode, particularly as the world will be vast and open, allowing for possible skips and time saves. There is a large appeal for games with speedrunning features as the community around speedruns has grown quite large in recent years. The game will likely feature hidden collectibles around the world, encouraging players to track down and explore every section.

Game Treatment:

Setting/Story: The game takes place on a long derelict spacecraft. The lone protagonist, seemingly the only survivor of whatever happened, traverses through the spacecraft's rooms solving puzzles, finding new paths, unlocking doors, and collecting secret items. In each sector, the primary path through will have puzzles as an obstacle. At the start of each puzzle, a wall terminal will be present, and simply walking near the terminal will activate it. The player can use the terminals to fast travel to any previously visited terminal, and act as a map of the ship. When the player reaches the final puzzles, they will have learnt about the disaster that destroyed the ship, and have found a means of escaping.

Mechanics:

1. Instead of typical platformer jumping, the lack of gravity causes players to launch perpendicular to the surface they jump from. During the jump, the player is unable to stop or redirect themselves until they land, or interact with an object that stops or redirects them. (Refer to below image)

2. The player will be able to walk from a valid surface to a valid perpendicular surfaces, if the player walks into the perpendicular surface. Doing so reorients the player, allowing them to walk along the perpendicular surface (refer to the below image). Valid surfaces are visually distinct from non valid surfaces, and determine what the player's gravity boots will stick to. If a player walks onto a non-valid surface, they will begin drifting in the direction they were moving.

Art style: The ship will have a largely metallic theme, but different areas will have distinct colours (Sector 1 - Red, Sector 2 - Yellow, etc). The art style will follow an 8x8 pixel size for assets, and the resolution will likely resemble that of a retro gaming console (NES 256 x 240, GB 160 x 144, etc).