Snejk
platformer spin on the old classic
Overview
Snejk, same as it’s inspiration, is a game about collecting points in a form of food that grows your characters lenght whilst trying not to collide head first with a wall or your own body. But it is made into a 3D platformer with unique spin on the movement mechanincs.
Snejk is my first project that “crossed the finish line”, and could therefore be called my first game. However it ended up terribly due to scope creep and rushed development, so it became more of an learning experience rather than full-fledged game.
But I thought the project had great potential so after a long break I started slowly reworking it. So here I’ll write about current direction of the project, even if only the old version of the game is playable right now. (apart from Re;Snejk tech demo)
The conception
For my first real project I followed the advice to take an existing game and add my own twist to it.
Prior to deciding to choose Snake game as an inspiration I knew wanted to make 3D game, because I personally just find 3D games more enjoyable to play. And the top-down perspective helps me immerse myself in the game way more then 2D could achieve, because it reminds me of my childhood days where I would create scenarios with my toys and then play it out like a game. And also 3 dimensions allow you for more options for solutions of problems or interesting mechanics.
So when I was deciding on which game could be good inspiration I was mostly looking for something movement oriented, mainly to make it easier for myself and only focus on a handful of mechanics. And I remembered the snake game to be my unfinished assignment back in highschool . So to redeem myself I decided to go with it.
With this I had what I needed. Simple game – Snake, and the twist 3D environment.
Chalanges & Solutions
The movement in 3d
Classic snake’s challange is in navigating the game world in constant movement whilst dodging obstacles and eventually yourself.
I decided to deviate from the classic movement controls alot and instead of the obvious solution – just allowing the Snejk to also move in all 3 axis – I designed the charge jump ability – which allows you to jump based on the duration of jump input hold. That jumo is heavily inspired by Outer Wilds’s jump as I find it way more interesting then the other more commonly used “Press Jump to ascend higher”, and It is reocuring feature in my games.
The ground movement also required some inovation, as it felt rather bland. First I got rid of the constant forward movement, because it proved to be a bit frustrating during the platforming making the game a bit too difficult. (Which for a while was intended in the begging, but I changed my mind.)
Drawing the inspiration from snake species. Specifically their locomotion. So to simulate this way of moving but at the same time keeping it without difficult physics, I slowed the base movement of the character and added short gradually decreasing bursts of speed when character starts turning – Therefore motivating player to move this way if he wants to move faster, but not requiring it.
Impacts of this unique movement
More space is needed
Since the Snejk can move at decent speed, there is a need for some slightly larger levels for easier maneuvering. However it can be argued for the opposite case where making small levels makes player more conscious about their movement.
Jumping over ssself
Since Snejk can more easily dodge collision with it’s own body by simply jumping over itself, which is really common way of failing in classic game, there is a need for some dynamic obstacles.
Lessons learned (from previous version)
Good Level design is long and iterative process.
Creating even short level takes a lot of time – you start with simple blockout that you “sculpt” over numerous testings into it’s final form. And I am not even counting the work that goes into making the level look nice.
Get rid of “I am not enough” mindset! And test your games with other people often.
I was really insecure about the game not being cool enough, so I kept on creating more and more content without testing it with other people thus I stayed in my own bubble and it ended up hurting the game.
Difficult games only work when tightly executed.
Initially Snejk was ment to be one of those very difficult (almost rage inducing) games. However when I eventually play tested the game with friends I realised that it was more about the game being straight up unfair rather than difficult. So I dropped this idea of difficulty.
