Retro Rising Rampage

Retro Landscape

Tasks: Level layout, objectives design, weapon and enemy design, mechanics balancing

Retro Rising Rampage was conceived as a building block on our way to creating Spark Rising. As a small, contained game, we were able to prototype and test many of the features that would eventually make their way into the full game. Since we were going to release the game for free, I chose a theme that could go viral quickly and I wanted the gameplay to match that theme. Thus, we created an arcade-style experience that was fast, fun, and very difficult. At the same time, we wanted to showcase some of the new tech that we were building into our upcoming game. Building an environment where the entire level could be destroyed was difficult, especially given that objectives needed to be reached and eliminated. The entire map was cleverly disguised as a testing ground for me so that I could determine what landscapes worked and didn't work. We had urban environments inspired by Pokemon, platforming segments inspiring by Mario, and forests inspired by Legend of Zelda. Furthermore, working with limited enemy AI (which was rudimentary at that point), lead to the decision to give enemies the ability to also destroy the environment, which lent the enemies a relentless nature. We ended up enjoying the creepy, zombie-like doggedness of the enemies so much that we brought them back into Spark Rising at a later time!