Coin Party
Dash and Bounce around levels to collect the most coins, using abilities and dashing into opponents to steal coins away. Play with up to 4 friends, choosing between 4 characters and 3 levels!
Platform PC
Genera 2D Multiplayer Party
Role Systems Design, Level Design
Team Size 15
Duration 22 weeks
Itch Page https://micerun.itch.io/coin-party
Systems Design Overview
Core Game Loop
The core game loop focuses on movement and abilities. We wanted to give players a sense of momentum (speed with weight) as they maneuvered around the level. Movement is key to collecting coins fast and evading and attacking other players. Abilities help players gain coins as well, creating another interaction to think about.
Movement Design
On top of traditional movement players have a Dash which launches them in their input direction. While in a Dash players can hit opponents to make them drop coins, and collide with surfaces to go into an Auto Bounce.
The Auto Bounce allows players to dash in another direction after a surface collision. While holding the Dash input players will reflect off of the collided surface, or can input a different direction to change their trajectory, and releasing will stop the next bounce. This allows players to stay in a Dashing state and control their direction.
Player Input - Dash Angles
When implementing the Dash we wanted players to Dash in any direction they were inputting on a control stick (360 angles). The problem we found was it is too hard to input the specific angle you wanted, resulting in players never reliably going where they wanted to. To fix this I referenced other games, like Celeste, and saw how they locked the player to 8 dash directions by creating a range of angles on the control stick that would send the player in the same direction always. Switching to these input ranges for 8 angles (cardinal directions and the 45 degrees between them) resulted in players movement being more consistent and allowing them to move around the level smoother.