#Also i learned I could double jump when I beat Celeste

[rockingcockatiel]

Game Portfolio

Introduction

This was the concept of a game I came up with wish I was unable to finish due to being unable to run the software for developing the game

This was the portfolio I made for the game to explain the idea I had for it and other games I took inspiration from

Basic concepts  

Game Identity  

2D pixel art platformer about a young adventurer trying to find treasure  

Genre  

The main genre of my game is a platformer and metroidvania combination the sub genres of it are puzzle, exploration, hack and slash, adventure and 2D.  

Audience  

The target audience of my game is teens and young children as it has a cute pixel art style along with simple mechanics that allow anyone to learn and play.  

Similar games already in the market  

Game that are like the one I'm planning on making are Celeste, The momodora series, Cave story and Katana Zero.  

Concept Explained  

Visual Style

The visual style of my game will be pixel art similar to how cave story + and momodora 3 are designed the reason for this is due to it being a simple style create and make a design for and as a solo developer; both of the developers of cave story and momodroa 3 worked independently on the game developer's, Another thing to note is that sprite based art is easier to animate as all you need to do is make a character sheet of all the characters and enemies and their different animations while this may look daunting at first as you working with the same characters and the graphics won't be overly detailed it allows for you to make all the animations just by changing a few minor aspects of the art; this also has the advantage of making the levels layout design be easier as you can reuse the same base art for it. An example of this would be if you're making a small valley for one area of the game but wanted to add a little add a hill you could take one of the other tiles use rotate it and edit it a bit so that it can appear as a hill. Another to note is the style appeals more to children than some sort of gritty gears of war style game while these games don’t have a bright colour palette when compared to other sprite-based platformers it still appeals to children by having cute characters and art style.  

Gameplay Elements  

The main element of the game would be its jumping and combat mechanics while the combat portion of the game is easy to understand as you get better weapons and higher levels you can learn combos for weapons which can allow you to deal more damage or even activate special attacks with unique animations; Another thing to note is that they can be combined together for example one of weapons allows for a combo that makes you tiny and can be activated in mid-air so if you were to turn tiny while jumping the player could jump off a wall into a tiny gap that allows them to get hidden treasure; The game will even encouraging doing this by having areas you can't have access to without certain items or weapons. Other games have done this while the games that inspire this one doesn’t use these mechanic as they mainly encourage the play to push forward and only come back to areas if they wish to buy items from shop keepers. One core platforming element of the game will be the double jump and wall jump features as it can allow the player to get to different areas if they know how to use it correctly while this feature isn't unique to the game I'm creating celeste does have its own feature in which the player is able to dash which can allow them to reach areas they couldn’t without dashing this is a core mechanic of the game as most areas can't even be beaten without dashing; A smaller mechanic of the dash feature is that the characters hair will turn blue after dashing.  

Genre  

The games genre is a combination of mainly platformer and metroidvania elements a metroidvania type game is encourages the play to backtrack, has map in which a majority of its areas are connected in one way or another with ways to teleport back to previous areas the reason I'm making my game like this is to encourage the player to invest more time into instead of completing it in one run, The game will also encourage the player to back track by having certain items or treasures being locked behind areas which require items you acquire later on in the game. The other main genre is platforming as the main aspect of the game is for the player to hunt for treasure and gear hidden throughout the games map; the reason I choose its sub genres, are because it will have certain features of those genres but it, they wouldn’t be the focus of the game an example would be the puzzle mechanic certain dungeons would require the player to activate certain buttons in specific places to unlock the vault door that leads to treasure. Momodora 3 and Cave Story+ are both games of the same main genre being Metroidvania and Platformer.  

Game Design  

Music  

The games music is going to vary between areas for example a desert like area would mainly use Arabic or Egyptian instruments, an area based of a castle or kingdom would use an orchestra, mountainous or snowy areas would have slow calm music with certain areas of the music being focused on like a drum solo. Some examples of this are Crosscode’s Bergen Village which has wind instruments being the main orchestra of the song to match the location being a mountain, Super Smash Bros (fire emblem castle siege) which is a remix of the original fire emblem theme made to match the more faster paced action of a super smash bros match , Kirby Air Ride - Sky Sands or Kirby Air Ride – Sand which uses fastest paced drumming and string instruments to make an arabic sounding beat for a racing game; Bosses in the game would also have unique themes exclusive to them. I would save my best designed music for each of the bosses. Some examples of hard video game bosses with well-designed music are Jevil from Deltarune which sounds like music that you would hear in a circus it conveys a feeling that you're going against a madman and should be prepared to expect him to throw anything at you, Cynthia in Pokémon Diamond & Pearl which instantlys goes into action instead of being a slow build up  it features a mixture of drum and bass along with pianos it tells the player that this fight will be over fight if you don’t try your hardest; and Godcat's theme from Epic Battle Fantasy 4 which is an has church orchestras along with a choir singing mixed with electro synthwave giving off the feel that you are fighting an entity that you have no chance against; These are some of my favourite video game boss theme and one of the main reason I would choose to replay a game myself is to hear the themes certain bosses or areas have a game with good or amazing music will be much more appealing than a game with bland or boring music.  

Design Pillars  

The main emotions or feelings I want the player to experience when playing my game are joy, excitement and calmness from the the simplicity of the game and it not being overly difficult.  

Miscellaneous  

Target Audience  

The reason I chose the target audience as children and teens is that my game will feature and mechanics, story and gameplay elements that appeal to them; for children it will feature bright colours and a cute or more child friendly design style; for teens the story will be one that appeals to them from having the hero’s journey so that they feel like they made the character grow along with having the main protagonists of the game being the same age as them, It will also have gameplay elements that will challenge them to get better at the game so they can show off their friends or even play it with a younger sibling so they can bound over it.  

Target Platform  

The platform I plan to release this game on is pc as to release it on a console would require a devkit for said console which would be out of budget as well as me not knowing how to develop any games. Another thing to note that there a multiple retailers' platforms on pc when compared to console which only has three being Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, while pc has multiple which are looking to host smaller developer's games on their platform  

We were also tasked with making a pitch for the game which we presented to other students

In the end I had to change a lot about the game due to the time constraints and the lack of resources I had from being a 16-bit metroidvania into a generic 2d platformer While I'm stilling working on art for the game due to being able to run unity properly I'm not fully able to develop that much of the game so it’s currently on hiatus; In the meantime I'm learning to use a simpler engine known as RPG maker Mv which I'm making a short game in I currently have no plans for what it's about other than the characters in it are based off of my friends personalities and how they act which I find easier to use to make a characters on.

Game Pitch

We were also tasked with making a pitch for a game in which we presented to other students to save on image space I'll give a rundown of what was on each slide

Details Of the game

Platform: PC 

Engine: Unity  

Genre: 2D Platformer, Metroidvania  

Classification: Casual Game  

Single player  

Dimensions: 2D

The target audience of my game

Gender: Male  

Secondary: Female  

Age: Young Teenagers 

Psychographics: Is a fan of 2d pixel art games, likes platformers or hack n slash games, Likes cute or pixel art style

The synopsis of the game

A young adventurer is sent on a quest after receiving a letter  

They go out exploring legendary treasure 

There's an evil organisation planning on dominating the solar system  

The adventurer is being deceived  

A superweapon is revealed  

Adventurer must destroy it

The genre of the game

Main Genres  

Metroidvania

2D Platformer

Sub – Genres  

Hack n Slash  

Puzzle 

Adventure

The sound design of the game

16- Bit  

Variety of Instruments  

Foley sound effects 

Main Style: Nintendocore  

Secondary Styles: Chiptune, Synthwave

Visual Style of the game

Anime- Styled  

Pastel-Neon hybrid Colour Palette 

Futuristic/Medival Era  

Cute Styled Art  

Minimalistic character and level design

How to meet the audience’s needs

Appeal to them with content they like 

Have the advertised content appear in the game  

Focus on appealing to main target audience  

Know what my target audience likes and wants in games

Similar Games in the market

Momodora 3 

Kirby Super Star Ultra  

Cave Story+  

Orange Island  

Celeste

[operationrainfall]

Title Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition Developer Moon Studios GmbH Publisher Microsoft Studios Release Date September 27th, 2019 Genre Metroidvania, Platformer Platform PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One Age Rating E for Everyone – Mild Fantasy Violence Official Website

After beating Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition, I have to question whether I’m as good at platformers as I’ve always thought. Though, to be fair, Ori and the Blind Forest is a mix of hardcore platformer and Metroidvania. That is an odd distinction to make, but after experiencing what the game had to offer, I can’t help but feel it’s accurate. I’ve known about Ori for a long while, but it took the Switch release of the Definitive Edition to finally spur me to trying the game. It would have happened much sooner had I known that it was part Metroidvania. This game is lush, melancholy, beautiful, and full of wonder. It’s compelling and emotional. Then, the real question is, was Ori and the Blind Forest worth my wait?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Ori and the Blind Forest starts with a storm that set events in motion. A lone light is dislodged from the luminous Spirit Tree, and crashes to the earth. It turns out the light is our hero, Ori, though he starts as a frail, innocent child. Looking like a hodgepodge of forest animals with bright white skin and dark eyes, Ori nevertheless awakens the mothering instincts of Naru. Naru couldn’t be more different from Ori, being huge and hairy, but that doesn’t stop her from loving him dearly. Things go well, and time passes peacefully, until something dramatic happens to impact the natural health and bounty of the forest kingdom of Nibel. Food is less plentiful, the elements become much more extreme and suddenly there’s not enough food to share. In a heartbreaking moment, Naru sacrifices her share of food to Ori, and one day he finds her still and lifeless. Orphaned, Ori sets out into the elements, where he perishes. Revived by the last flicker of the Spirit Tree’s light, our hero goes on a journey to restore the elements and discover the source of this catastrophe.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

What’s truly impressive about the presentation of Ori and the Blind Forest is that most of the story is told visually. There are some minor narrative moments, and you’ll quickly gain an ally who explains the basics, but the vast majority of the powerful story moments are ones that the game doesn’t fully explain. I find this a wise strategy, since it lends the game a “living fairy tale” vibe. Take a spoonful of Studio Ghibli, mix in some Grimm Fairy Tales, add a pinch of Disney, and you have a heady concoction. While there is a large part of me that prefers that every minute detail of a plot get explained, I still feel this approach worked really well here. Sure, I still had some lingering questions at the end of the game, but the most relevant details were made perfectly clear.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Now, I consider myself a champion of both the platformer and Metroidvania genres, so you might be surprised that I found Ori and the Blind Forest incredibly challenging. Part of the reason for that is that, as I stated earlier, the game doesn’t really hold your hand. Instead, you’re left to your own devices, taught new skills as you explore, and everything else you do at your own pace. A more important reason for the difficulty is that Ori is incredibly squishy, and there are traps and threats everywhere, most especially spikes. And while you can increase your base health like in any proper Metroidvania, it never seems to do much to protect you from harm. Hell, even after I purchased an ability called Ultra Defense, I still felt like I could get walloped in a few solid hits. Plus, when you factor in that Ori moves like he looks, meaning he skitters about like a squirrel, you can start to comprehend why I started to question my gaming skills.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Quite simply, Ori and the Blind Forest is not an easy game, even for this veteran of the genre. You’re going to die a lot, and god help you if you try for the aptly named Unhinged achievement, which requires beating the game without dying once. That said, I’m happy to admit that Ori is also a wonderful and fun game, despite the difficulty. Sure, there were times I saw so many spike-covered surfaces I thought I was playing Celeste, and yes, I yelled and screamed at the game when I screwed up and died repeatedly. However, it’s also rather satisfying whenever you manage a seemingly impossible feat, such as grappling off owls determined to claw you to death, or riding a gust of wind through stalactite covered death traps, or escaping from a river of magma. There’s no shortage of challenge in this game, but those willing to brave them all will find a fascinating and beautiful world.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You’re probably wondering how combat works in Ori, and the simple answer is it’s Sein’s doing. At the start of the game, Ori is completely defenseless, and can only move and jump about. That all changes when he finds Sein, a fragment of the Spirit Tree. While Ori is mute, Sein is very talkative, and explains the task ahead of you, as well as giving advice how to proceed. Sein will also protect you with powerful beams of fiery light that burst from him, as well as other attacks like a chargeable explosion. Ori and Sein have a very symbiotic relationship, but for simplicity you can just think of Sein as an extension of Ori’s will. You still have complete control over when he attacks. I admit that this took some getting used to, since most Metroidvanias have you directly attacking foes, whereas here you can be running away from them and Sein can still lock on and blast them. Thankfully, even though Ori can’t directly defend himself, he learns many, many skills that help him traverse the environment.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In traditional Metroidvania fashion, Ori will come across altars that empower him with new skills. These range from the standard stuff like wall climbing, double jump, and hovering, to more exotic things like his Spirit Flame and Charge Flame, and most importantly, his Bash skill. I have to say, the Bash skill is one of the most complex and unique moves I’ve seen in a long time, and I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. Bash allows you to latch onto a projectile or enemy and freeze time, then by rotating your orientation to said item with a handy arrow, you can fling yourself away from it. Where this got tricky was that there are many times where you have to flip the orientation, flinging yourself away and aiming the projectile at a breakable wall. The game really likes this mechanic, and eventually will start throwing it at you when you’re in mid-air or rushing for your life. I think my biggest issue was that it never became a secondhand reflex to use Bash, and I was constantly required to utilize it. That said, the vast majority of the skills Ori learned were fun and intuitive, so I can’t fault the game too much over one I had problems with.

More Ori on Page 2 ->

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As if that wasn’t enough, Ori also has an Ability Tree. At any save point, you can use Energy either found in the world or obtained from beating enough enemies to purchase new powers. Some are passive, and others are new, modified versions of your skills. There are three branching paths for you to explore, and the only proviso is you need to purchase the abilities in sequence, and they progressively cost more Energy. In my 9 hours with the game, I only managed to fully acquire one branch of the Ability Tree, and found around a third of the Energy Meter (which dictates how many times you can use certain attacks) and Health upgrades. I’m sure there are other gamers much more hardcore than myself who not only managed to 100% the game, but did so in a fraction of my playtime. I tip my hat to them, but feel my experience much more accurately represents the average gamer. Oh, and back to the topic of save points, while there are stationary ones that heal you fully, called Spirit Wells, the vast majority you make yourself. This is done when you have enough excess Energy, and you hold A to create a save point wherever you like. Or mostly wherever, since the game won’t let you make them in mid-air or in areas it considers unsafe. Though, honestly, the entire game is dripping with menace, so that’s a somewhat dubious distinction.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Now, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Ori, but it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t spend a little time talking about the game’s villain, Kuro the owl. Calling Kuro a mere owl denies the scale and menace of the bird, not to mention her cruel intelligence. Kuro is responsible for the state of things, and she will ruthlessly hound you at key points in the game. Ori is a infinitesimal speck compared to Kuro’s size, and if she catches him, he’s done for instantly. Thankfully, whenever you encounter her, the game conveniently autosaves so you don’t start over from the very beginning of the stage when you die again and again. At first I completely loathed Kuro, but about halfway through the game the truth of her story is revealed, and I found I had a ton of sympathy and newfound understanding for the villain. It takes a special game to accomplish that sort of feat.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

While Kuro is undeniably the primary antagonist in Ori and the Blind Forest, the game doesn’t really have traditional boss fights. Sure, there are a couple areas you face mini-boss encounters, typically against a recurring foe, this leaping tentacle monster that erupts from the floor to harass you. But, in lieu of real boss fights, the game instead has epic chase sequences. One of Ori’s goals to restore the Forest of Nibel is to find and restore the three Elemental Lights. These each represent a distinct element, namely Water, Wind, and Fire. But, as a result of the corruption of each of these elements, upon restoring them they blaze wildly out of control, and you have to run like hell to survive. These are heart-pounding and harrowing sequences, and they provide a huge challenge. Though they are all more than epic, I found the first one to actually be the most challenging, racing against rushing waters seeking to drown Ori in the Ginso Tree. While I don’t mind the difficulty of these overmuch, I still found myself longing for a more traditional gauntlet of boss fights. That said, if the game eschewed these sequences for big bosses, it wouldn’t feel nearly as unique. That said, I most definitely have a love/hate relationship with these chases.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

For the most part, I feel the level of challenge in Ori is fair, but there’s a couple areas that were overwhelming for the wrong reasons. On occasion, I found the controls to be a bit unresponsive, such as leaping from a wall and double jumping. Sometimes it just doesn’t work properly, and I ended up falling to my death. Regarding my issues with the Bash skill, a good example of my frustration is the following. There’s a late-game area called Sorrow Pass, and it has beams of light that instantly kill you. Your goal is to push boulders to block these beams, as well as pushing them to the right positions. Problem is, often I had to leap in mid-air after launching one to redirect them with another Bash, which was incredibly difficult. Lastly, I faced some frustration when I encountered barriers that none of my skills or abilities could open up. I know you do get a couple powers from optional areas, the Black Root Burrows and Lost Grove, so it’s possible that’s why I couldn’t figure them out, but it was still annoying. Lastly, while I like how Ori skitters about, oftentimes he’s too floaty for his own good, and I would end up overshooting things. I understand his movements are dictated by his physical attributes, but I would have killed for his platforming to be a bit more precise.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Visually, Ori and the Blind Forest is a transcendent experience. I almost always take my own screenshots while playing Switch games I review, and I easily took more than 200 while I played. This is just a beautiful and melancholy world, where darkness swallows all but a speck of light. Yet it’s a world full of natural and unnatural beauty, such as purple thorny bushes, huge mushrooms and incandescent infernos. Though there’s not a ton of different foes, they all look and act differently, such as heavy leaping toads, explosive larvae that erupt into smaller threats, and much more. I love the use of dark blue colors in the game, and the clever use of lighter hues to illuminate it. Musically, Ori is even more breathtaking. Though there’s not a ton of different tracks, they each serve a distinct purpose, as do the many sound effects. More importantly, the music is very emotional, which helps ground the tone of the game. I even found the occasional use of silence was genius, and did a great job of building the tension or momentary peace in this world.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I can’t help but love Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition. Sure, it’s far harder than I expected, even on Normal, but that doesn’t take away from the glory of this experience. In my playthrough, I uncovered about 75% of the map, and still have plenty to unlock. And that’s not taking into account the many achievements you can fulfill (though I’m not even trying for Unhinged). For only $19.99, it’s hard to turn it down. While it’s true some of the mechanics and controls were a bit finicky for me, overall the game played like a dream. If you love emotional and unique experiences that truly draw you into the game, you have to play Ori and the Blind Forest. Even if you don’t think you’re good at platformers, you can always try on the easiest difficulty, because this is an adventure that demands to be experienced. Kudos to Moon Studios for developing it and to Microsoft for bringing it to another console.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition Title Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition