Gotta Lotta Lava

Floor Is Lava! Outlast Your Friends! Freeze Them With Snow Balls!

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Inspiration

I have always had a fascination with 3D noise visualization, using a custom variant on Simplex Noise, I started with a floor of rising lava, and pillars that moved up and down based on 2D noise. This ended up being really fun by itself, and I built upon that fun by adding unique ways for players to effect the world while playing together.

Gameplay

The game is quite simple on the surface, but has rather large depth the more you play. We wanted to focus on the mobile user experience, thinking about the times when you are waiting and have just a couple mins to play. This led to the first loop which you experience immediately upon arrival.

"Jump In!"

This text invites visitors to jump into the lava basin, where they quickly realize not all is as it seems, and they will need to keep moving to stay out of the lava. This is because the ground beneath you sinks. I also added soft motion using modified sine waves to give the ground a natural motion at all times.

Once you fall in the lava, you can see your current time, and compare it to your best time using the UI overlay at the top of the screen. This is the first moment of fun, as you keep trying and typically succeeding in beating your high score.

After awhile though it becomes harder as the game has various stages. Starting with Friendly, then Easy, Medium, Hard, Nightmare, and eventually the final stage Eternal Lava. Each stage lasts 15 seconds, until you reach nightmare which has a tremor every 15 seconds. Eternal Lava is triggered once all players have fallen into the lava at least once. Which is one of the best parts of this game, because you can keep playing even if you already died.

Learning how to survive each of these stages and the unique challenges they provide is fun and can even be difficult. This challenge is a huge part of what keeps players going and trying their best. For our advanced "Expert" players they compete for the top spot on daily and all time leaderboards. These players learn how to use snow balls to survive the "tremors" which occur every 15 seconds.

As the developer, I love checking leaderboards every day to see how people are doing and how much further they have been able to go. Player times are always higher than I could have ever imagined!

What it does

Minigames are core to building new friendships, and the unexpected interactions, laughs and all that occurs in these moments, brings people together. I have loved seeing my friends discover Gotta Lotta Lava, and meeting the friends they have brought to check it out. It excites me as a creator to see them having fun and inspires me to keep building.

How it was built

MHCP creators have recently been allowed to make public tutorials on their creation process. I took this opportunity to make a series on how to make worlds using the Desktop Editor and Typescript. This world was a relatively simple and fun mechanic that could be demonstrated in a live tutorial series. Engaging with my audience on YouTube we came up with the name, "Gotta Lotta Lava." After just the first live stream, I realized the game was a lot more fun than expected, and I began pouring my time into making this world what it is today.

Challenges

Time has been the biggest challenge. During the competition I was travelling for a week to see family for the holidays. This had the benefit of using my nieces and nephews as testers, and at night I would work on updates to show them the next day. Near the end, I had to put all focus on finishing, polishing, and really just removing bugs. I didn't have time for all of the Custom UI and other fun features I'd like to add in the future.

Accomplishments

I love the way more players adds to the dynamic. Whether you are throwing snow balls to freeze your friends, or working together to freeze the stone pillars below your feet. Or for the most devious, jumping on pillars to sink your friends faster! This has given life, that makes every playthrough unique.

Lessons learned

I learned how to accomplish a finished build under tight timelines. I also learned how to implement several new mobile friendly features. Specifically noting Focused Interaction, and UI Overlays.

What's next for Gotta Lotta Lava

Part of every build I do is making an Asana board to track the projects progress, bugs, etc. I have a section for what I'd like to add next, which includes:

  • Auto targeting for snow balls
  • Stats & Results Custom UI Boards
  • Chill water pool (hangout space to "cool off" in
  • Winner pillars (1st through 5th place get shown off on pillars in center of the world)
  • Hand UI for VR players (current UI is HUD, which can be uncomfortable for new VR users)
  • Moment To Moment Instructions (UI that appears just when you need it to explain how features work)
  • Player Defeated Hats (these hats will grow based on the number of players you have defeated)
  • Purchasable Hats
  • Purchasable Dyes For Hats

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