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PUNCH PARTY
A fast paced party game where you can punch all your friends in the face!
Details
My roles:
Platform:
Genre:
Duration:
Team size:
Engine:
Lead designer, Game Design, QA, Management
PC, with controller
5 weeks
9
Tengine
Brawler, Local co-op
Description
With the setting of an intergalactic gameshow, Punch Party is a party brawler game where you and your friends are put in an arena to fight for honor and glory. You fight by punching each other with your really, really stretchy “arms”, all while avoiding environmental hazards and trying your best to knock your friends out. Last person standing wins!
My contributions
Lead Design and Management
My main role in the project was creating the idea and scope for the game, defining the mechanics and then keeping that vision throughout the project.
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I managed the entire project with scheduling, meetings and planning. I also documented the whole project and made sure everyone worked in the same direction. Working with mostly Trello and Hansoft I kept track of our progress and the weekly sprints we worked with.
Game Design
As creator of the concept, gameplay designer and game tester I spent a lot of time working with the game's mechanics, what they should look and feel like, and how they should work.
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I also designed all the menus for the game, and participated in the design of the UI, as well as partook in the SFX design, since we created and recorded all sound effects ourselves.
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Playtesting and tweaking values was also something I participated in, as well as testing for bugs.
The Process
The idea of the attack was to make something where you had to think before using it. The attack extends an "arm", and the arm is part of your hitbox. Attacking one player across the map makes you vulnerable to attack on your arm from other players. The "arm" extending means that the player has to think an extra step before attacking, especially since there are moving hazards on the playing field.
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The Attack
The biggest challenge was to balance the speed of the arm, since we wanted it to be possible to hit the arm, but we also wanted the game to feel fast-paced and a bit chaotic.
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We decided very early on to have the "hands" colliding mean that none of the players take damage, as a type of defense strategy for fast thinkers. Something we added later in the process was the knockback, since we felt like the feedback for being hit and hitting another player didn't feel good enough. The knockback added a lot to the game feeling, which was very important to us.
Environmental Hazards
The moving hazards has been a part of the game form the very early concept days, because I wanted something to restrict the players from shooting over the entire arena without thinking, and to create a threat other than the player. Having the hazard moving meant that the player would have to always keep track of their environment, and not just the players around them.
This was also before the dash was implemented. The hazard was intended to be a way for players to tactically trick other players into taking damage, and also something to play around as a form of defense. It filled it purpose, and it made the gameplay more interesting.
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The hazard was a tricky thing to implement thematically, since we wanted the maps to match the characters, and the hazard to match the map. It had to be something that could move, but also something that we had time to model and implement.
The Dash
Starting out the game didn't have the dash, but it's something we decided to add along the way because the game didn't feel skill-based and/ or controllable enough for the player. Adding the dash gave the players a new way to avoid attacks, rather than just hiding, and it also made the game more fast-paced - something we wanted for the game and worked hard on maintaining. It also opened up a whole new world of strategies.
The dash does not make you invincible in any way, it only moves you forward. This was a very conscious decision. The dash does not run on any type of cooldown, other than it needs to finish completely before engaging in a new one. Being able to continuously dodge through attacks did not feel right for our game, since I wanted to keep the focus on playing around the attack and being aware of your surroundings while navigating through a chaos.
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