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The Fungal Cave

Solo Developer | Ludwig Game Jam 2021

October 2021

You are the local Toxicologist and have been hired to create an extremely deadly poison made from the rare Golden Bloodcap mushroom. This mushroom, however, can only be found deep within the fungal cave. A dangerous cave filled with treacherous rock platforms, painful brambles, and bouncy pink mushrooms.

Being an expert in mycology, you found a way to use mushrooms to your advantage, by forming them into a bouncy mushroom ball! 

 

Venture into the fungal cave and navigate the dangerous platforms. Bounce on your mushroom ball to navigate large gaps and distances. Watch out for the brambles as touching them could send you falling to the bottom!

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On Itch.io here!

On GitHub here!

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Responsibilities:

This was a solo game project I did over the course of 10 days. I did everything for the game including:

  • Gameplay Design

  • Programming

  • Level Design

  • Art Creation

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Recognition:

Placed #10 overall via community voting.

Was featured on a live stream of 18,000+ viewers as an honorable mention.

Final vs Blockout
Level art concept
Early level art test

Tools / Languages Used:

Unity, C#, Visual Studio, GitHub, Aseprite, Audacity

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Design Process:

I created this game for the Ludwig game jam 2021. The goal of the game was to create a game in ten days to the theme of 'Foddian game'. This theme refers to the game designer/developer Bennett Foddy, and his game Getting Over It. The first thing I did when the theme was announced was break down the core elements of what a Foddian type game was. To me, it meant a game in which the player is tasked with completing a level with no checkpoints using unique or challenging movement mechanics.

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I had previously had an idea for a platformer in which a player could throw some kind of projectile that they could then jump off to traverse further in the level. I decided to go with this idea and begin prototyping. I created a little demo room to test out the mechanics, and after tweaking the platformer movement I started the level blockout. I didn't want the player to die in this game, so instead, I added hazard surfaces that would put the player in a falling state. In this state, the player couldn't control their character and had to watch as they fell further back down the level. I also added bouncy surfaces for the player to bounce the projectile off of. Once the ball had bounced back to them, they could jump off of it to get to platforms they otherwise wouldn't be able to with a normal jump. This added a fun puzzle-type mechanic to the game which I quite enjoyed.

 

After having blocked out the level, I started to test out art themes for it. I decided to use a color pallet generator to get inspiration. I got some nice purple shades and started making some concepts for the level art. I decided on going with a mysterious mushroom-filled cave, which I feel turned out quite nice. After making the art I still had some time left in the jam and decided to add some story elements. So I implemented a cutscene and dialogue system and wrote some basic intro and outro scenes.

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I learned a lot from this game, both in areas I succeeded in and in which I fell short. namely, the importance of player controls. The control scheme I used was much too difficult for beginners. So I have learned that a game should be as easy to get into as possible, 

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