ComBAT - Game
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ComBAT is a 2D multiplayer party game for 2-4 players, created at Global Game Jam Wellington 2017 based on the theme, Waves. Players must defeat each other, but are unable to see the arena. Players must use “echolocation” to reveal nearby objects to help interpret the space, but doing so exposes their exact location to other players. Created in under 48 hours in a team of 4.
January 2017
DATE
Team Lead, 2D Art & Game Design
TASKS
TEAM
Tom Lewis, Phoebe Zeller and Ivy Calvert
in ComBAT players would play as bats with the goal to defeat all of the other players. However, after a short delay the arena would turn completely dark, and players would have to try to find other players in the dark by screeching, lighting up nearby objects and revealing any nearby players.
Each round would begin with the level revealed and players able to freely move about, but unable to damage one another. Players would have the opportunity to see the level and the objects it contained so that exploration in the dark would be an informed choice, with the option to move about without screeching. The players themselves would also be completely hidden until they made noise and created a sound wave centered on their position.
Once darkness fell players could begin to eliminate each other. All players would have 4 possible actions: Flap, Steer, Screech and Attack. Players would have to constantly press the Flap button to stay airborne, or stop pressing in order to descend. Players could steer their bats with the analogue stick to aim where the flaps propel them. Screeching emits a circular sound wave centered on the player, revealing that player and any other bats or objects it comes in contact with. Lastly attacking would propel the bat forward quickly with a small projectile emitted from the top of the bat, damaging any enemy bats it came into contact with as well as emitting a smaller screech revealing the player.
The objects existed not only as movement blockers but as a potential tactical asset. A player could choose to quietly hide behind an object after seeing other players initiate a fight. Attacking bats would be revealed by their mini-screech, but a flapping bat could choose to navigate blindly in the dark. This created an interesting risk/reward paradigm between revealing yourself for better vision and faster movement, or avoiding attention but being imprecise in your movement.
Defeated players bodies would be permanently revealed to communicate to players how many other living players remained, preventing any hiding standoffs to keep the pace of the game fast.
ComBAT is played over several rounds, with players scoring a point for being the last bat alive. ComBAT was an easy to grasp concept and fun to play, the visual style was appealing and I was very satisfied with our teams work. I feel it was simple and intuitive but with enough mechanical complexity to provide players with the potential for clever decision making and skill expression.
What I learnt
My biggest takeaway was:
Sometimes leadership can feel invisible. While I concepted the original design and it was executed almost exactly as envisioned it, often times felt that my job was to be the yes man, my team would often individually come up with good ideas on how to best implement their assigned task and I always loved their takes. My biggest responsibility it felt was tracking down the only musician at the event to score some music for our game.
What I wish I could have done better:
I feel the flapping mechanic was perhaps poorly implemented. Players were required to constantly press the Flap button to remain aloft. While it was a novel gameplay experience it made repeat matches tedious and would severely impact the gameplay experience of anyone with less dexterity using a controller. I did receive some criticism of the mechanic but I felt this was the best system out of the other potential options we explored. The flapping/falling movement was imprecise but this made it entertaining as a party game control, though inconvenient in sustained play.
If we had more time to work on ComBAT:
Develop a more robust system for echolocation edge detection. Our system was very basic, objects broken down into multiple pieces, which if touched by a sound wave would immediately become highlighted in that players colour. It allowed us to establish the desired neon aesthetic but meant player positioning was less important, catching the tip of an object accomplished the same as being very close. The sound waves would also penetrate objects and reveal bats or objects on the other side which is something a new system would want to prevent, to make hiding a more appealing tactical decision.