Inspiration
Hop to the Top draws inspiration from classic climbing platformers and 90s pop music culture to give players the joy of mastering simple mechanics with increasing difficulty.
Bright visuals and playful characters give a rose-tinted (get it?) nod to early 3D platformers and modern casual games, blending nostalgic charm with a crisp, colorful style. The game's "easy to learn, hard to master" mechanics provide players with the satisfaction of making progress one jump at a time.
What it does
Hop to the Top challenges players to hop, parkour and float as high as possible by travelling from platform to platform in a vertical world. Players collect carrots to power up their jump—each one letting you jump higher and farther, stacking up to four times your normal jump height.
How we built it
With Three Talented creators. A scripter, a 3D modeler, and a visual artist all pooling their talents to create this lovely experience.
-Queen Stickii, world creator, is a designer and the world builder. -Joseph Brancik, 3D modeller and artist, made the assets the world is built from, the creator of building blocks. -Proto, our maverick scripter, makes the magic happen, building unique and innovative mechanics.
Challenges we ran into
Being spread across multiple technologies and platforms, coordination and communication proved quite challenging during this project. As was the short timescale and balancing workloads with external factors and real life challenges. However, by working as a team, understanding and trusting in one other’s skill sets and working styles, we were able to pull together and produce high quality content in a very short time.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our double jump mechanic, designed by Proto, is concise and very satisfying, especially as it can be employed to produce infinite jumps, creating the opportunity to develop many more entertaining and challenging levels. The design focus on environmental aesthetics by Queen, and tactile texturing of assets developed by Joseph, were borne of deliberate decisions to break from highly textured and overstimulating worlds, to create a calming and fun place which can also be used for free roaming. The sky box and lighting choices add to this relaxing and welcoming environment.
What we learned
Challenges in polycount and weight of standard objects have been one of our biggest challenges. We decided to model our own and Joseph spent significant time reducing these to maximise capacity and Proto optimised code and world streaming. Using new techniques and tools was an excellent learning opportunity for all.
Taking time to optimise and improve performance further by tapping into each other’s knowledge and individual expertise helped to stabilise the world and enhance the user experience.
What's next for Hop to the Top
Having added a second level, there are several more levels to come, introducing new environments and unlocking exciting new abilities and mechanics.
There will also be potential for mini games to earn credits to buy collectibles, as well as clothing and IWPs to visually capture imaginations outside the world itself. This creates a buzz and the opportunity to develop a community around the game, given the large environment and potential for continued play development, achievements and giving users reasons to return.
Built With
- blender
- horizon
- photosop
- typescript
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