Game Details
Players control customizable characters with single-touch screen operations, jumping across various spherical platforms. Players need to adjust their jumping strategies based on the characteristics of different platforms and random events. Points and achievements earned through gameplay can be redeemed for generous rewards.Below are some initial concepts for the gameplay, art, and code functions
Gameplay: Basic Content
The in-game interface comprises six elements: the character, platforms, background, character status, menu bar, and score statistics.
Interface Composition of "OrbJump" (Functional Demonstration, Not the Final Version)
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Character
Players can customize their character by selecting gender, strengths, weaknesses, and appearance, such as unique costumes. The game offers a range of special abilities and outfits that can be unlocked through leveling up or in-app purchases, allowing players to choose according to their preferences and game strategy, thereby enhancing the personalization and depth of the game.
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Character Status
Character status includes health points, stamina bar, character level, and avatar. This area is also crucial for the payment system. Health points directly affect the character's survivability; falling off platforms reduces health points, and the game ends when health points reach zero. The stamina bar reflects the character's ability to perform actions, with its consumption and recovery mechanism adding to the game's strategic elements. Character level progression typically unlocks new skills and enhances attributes. Personalized avatars deepen the player's sense of belonging and self-expression within the game.
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Background
The game background includes interactive elements, including NPC characters and city buildings surrounding the platforms. For example, collapsing buildings during extreme weather can block the player's path, and NPCs might jump onto platforms to interfere with the player. This design enhances the game's immersion and provides players with additional challenges and novel experiences.
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Platforms
The mere exposure effect in psychology suggests that repeated exposure increases our liking for something. This applies not only to interpersonal attraction but also to the acceptance and understanding of technological products. "OrbJump" draws inspiration from the Orb iris-scanning hardware for its jump platform design, incorporating Worldcoin elements into the spherical platforms across different game levels. This ensures high-frequency interaction between players and these elements.
I have designed various types of platforms: basic, moving, and those with special attributes:
Basic Platforms: These are simple and primarily serve the jumping function, ensuring players can easily recognize the jumping path.
Moving Platforms: These platforms move horizontally or vertically, adding an extra challenge for players to time their jumps correctly.
Special Platforms: These enrich gameplay and increase the complexity and fun of the levels. Special platforms include bouncy, sliding, and temperature-changing platforms, each with unique physical and environmental properties that require players to adapt and adjust their strategies in real-time.
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Menu Bar
The menu bar provides clear game navigation, including options for quick access to game settings, the store, the achievement system, and the community forum.
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Score Statistics
Scores are one of the standards for evaluating player performance. The score statistics interface displays the player's score comprehensively and in real-time. Points can be increased by jumping on more platforms or achieving greater jump distances.
Gameplay: Control Mechanism
"OrbJump" utilizes single-hand touch-screen controls. This design considers mobile device users' usage habits, ensuring that players can easily play the game in any situation, whether on a bus or waiting for a coffee.
In special levels or when using certain items, we have implemented a "Dynamic Camera Transition." Similar to games like "NieR: Automata" and "Sifu," the perspective can switch from a third-person over-the-shoulder view to a side or top view to suit different gameplay scenarios or enhance storytelling.
Side-view gameplay in Orb Jump
Gameplay: Content Promotion
"OrbJump" provides not only entertainment but also a platform for delivering valuable information and promoting learning.
Educational Load Screens: Brief and engaging facts about Worldcoin and blockchain technology are displayed during game loading screens, ensuring players can easily learn while waiting.
Worldcoin is designed to become the world's largest privacy-preserving human identity and financial network, giving ownership to everyone.
OrbJump Loading Screen Promotion Content Demo (Function Demonstration, Not the Final Version)
Special Levels for Education:
Specific levels are developed to introduce players to the Worldcoin project, blockchain technology, and its real-world applications through particular tasks and challenges. For instance, a pop-up question might appear during gameplay, and players will face two platforms representing correct and incorrect answers. Jumping onto the correct platform will reward the player with double points.
OrbJump In-Game Educational Content Demo (Function Demonstration, Not the Final Version)
Art Design: Rendering and Models
"OrbJump" adopts a Japanese cartoon rendering style, a computer graphics technique used to simulate hand-drawn animation styles, also known as Non-photorealistic Rendering (NPR). This style is widely used in games like "Genshin Impact" and "Honkai Impact 3rd," providing players with a unique visual experience.
As the core elements of the "OrbJump" game, the spherical platforms occupy nearly 90% of the player's interaction time and play a crucial role in the game. "OrbJump" plans to invest significant resources in the design and development of these spherical platforms. These diverse platforms not only serve their purpose within the game but also have the potential to be transformed into offline game merchandise, such as physical toys, pillows, clothing, water bottles, and other products.
Exceptional designs could even serve as the exterior appearance for the next generation of Orb iris scanning devices.
Regarding character design, "OrbJump" uses a Disney cartoon character style. The model design focuses on recognizability, expandability, and cross-cultural appeal to meet the needs of players worldwide.
Art Design: Animation and VFX
"OrbJump" adopts an animation style reminiscent of Pixar cartoons. The animation production process will combine traditional hand-drawn animation and motion capture technology to enhance efficiency.
When designing movements, classic actions from various cultures will be incorporated to enhance the game's global appeal and cultural depth.
Visual Effects (VFX)
Visual effects are key elements for enhancing player immersion and game experience. To improve development efficiency, commercially available VFX assets will be customized and modified for use.
Art Design: Environment, Sound Effects, UI
Each level in "OrbJump" features environment designs based on famous locations and cultural characteristics worldwide. From the pyramids of Egypt to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, each scene is an artistic representation of the real world, offering players visual enjoyment and cultural exploration.
The game is accompanied by light background music and various environmental sound effects. Different scenes will have different musical themes, such as traditional Japanese music for the Japan-themed levels, providing players with an immersive gaming experience.
Game Development: Game Engine, Code
Developing "OrbJump" using the Unity engine is because Unity supports over 25 platforms, including iOS and Android. It allows the game to be developed with a single codebase and deployed on almost all mainstream devices.
Here is a portion of the basic logic code. Although I am not a professional algorithm engineer, the coding part is not complex given that "OrbJump" is a lightweight mobile casual game.
Player Control and Physics Response:
This process is accomplished in collaboration with Unity's physics engine by capturing the player's input commands, applying physical forces to achieve character actions (such as jumping), and handling interactions between the character and the game environment through the physics engine's automatic calculations. For example, the Input class can be used to detect player actions and control movements by applying forces to the character's Rigidbody component.
CameraFollow
Screen Camera Offset:
In Unity, programming controls the camera to follow the player's movement or to change the camera's position and rotation when specific events are triggered. This is commonly achieved using interpolation functions (e.g., Vector3.Lerp) to transition between the current position and the target position smoothly.
PlayerController