Game Overview

Rodent Rampage is a, Jetpack Joyride-inspired, side-scroller endless runner where you play as a squirrel that uses a leafblower to traverse the environment while avoiding dangers and getting acorns for upgrades and to feed its appetite.

Google Play link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.MassDiGI.TeamCaramelApple&hl=en

Development

My work on this game consisted of the following:

• Managing the game’s acorn economy.

• Updating the store’s pricing.

• Coming up with new obstacle and acorn formations for the park level.

• Playtesting all of these additions.

• Implementing all of these things to the game through Unity and Plastic.

The Idea

This was a project I joined as a bit of a side thing to do on top of my normal work. Essentially, this game was already near-completion and just needed some updates to truly get it out the door into an official release. What I was tasked were some additions to the park level and updates to the store. The store updates I did primarily related to the prices of items. After playing the game for a bit and seeing the rates at which acorns were handed out, I quickly realized the store prices were incredibly high compared to games that inspired it, like Jetpack Joyride. A game like Jetpack Joyride would gradually increase the disparity between upgrade prices to match the new level of rates in earning currency when that upgrade was added in to the player’s inventory. So for example, a magnet’s first upgrade may be 1000, but the second is 3000, and the third would be 6000. This style of pricing is something I added within Rodent Rampage’s store. Then there are the obstacles. A few examples of the ones I added to the game are pictured here. I, again, took inspiration mainly from Jetpack Joyride for this, but I did look at other games like Subway Surfers and Super Mario Run. Something I noticed about all of these games is how they use their currencies to either give you recommend routes to avoid their obstacles or put them in more difficult to reach places to incentivize riskier plays. An example of the later idea is in the bottom picture. Here, I placed acorns right next to the fountain to push players to get as close to it as possible. However, if the player doesn’t want to risk such a play, they can jump earlier if desire because the cables at the top stop halfway through the whole obstacle. These types of subtle, but important choices are what make these games just that more engaging, and I tried to replicate it with such obstacles.

The Lesson

The big lesson I took from this project was regarding updating games. All of my work in other projects has always been about creating new big pieces of content from scratch (mainly related to new levels, of course). However, this was the first project I came in to mainly strengthen what was already there. Like, updating the store to be more friendly for the already existing economy and bolstering the obstacle variety in the park level. Which, by the way, that later one was easily the biggest challenge. Needing to make more obstacles while also making them naturally blend into the design of the already present obstacles in the level was the biggest issue (blending in difficulty and visuals). But yeah, while these small additions to games may not require the most development time to make a reality compared to other things, they can be just as important to make a game engaging and enjoyable to others.