Overview
"Cube³" is a currently in development isometric view boss rush. Inspired by the early 70's 3D renders and other games of the genre (such as Furi, Titan Soul or Death's Door), the game stands out by its minimalist aesthetic, using nearly only cubes and other geometric shapes.
Early prototype video
Project's design
Design's pillars
Cube³ is directed by a few key pillars :
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The game is a Boss Rush
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With Cubes
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Nervous
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and with an emphasis on Gamefeel
Production's context and its influence
The original concept and production of the game is heavily influenced by its context, which is the following :
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There is no Game Artist in the development team
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The bosses and player's animations need to be kept as simple as possible
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We made the choice to use no 3D/2D models assets in the game, using only technical and post-processing assets
List of the assets currently in the project
Due to the context, an idea arose : using simple geometric forms in order to limit the animations.
Artistic direction
The artistic direction is heavily inspired by the early 3D renders of the 70's, and Karl Sims'"Evolved Virtual Creatures".
Evolved Virtual Creatures, Karl Sims
While studying this aesthetic, we realised that all early renders were captured on tape, giving them a very distinct feel. This aesthetic also had an advantage : not only is it fast to replicate through post-processing, but it's also an aesthetic that very few if not no boss rush game has.
First HUB Prototype
Bosses, narration and playtests
As the main element and only enemy of the whole game, bosses are our main focus during the design and production stages, thus we had to find a good inspiration for them. If at first our main source of inspiration was the 3D modeling software blender, the evolution of the narration, aesthetic and universe over time shifted the bosses inspiration.
From a virtual world, the universe was more of a "ancient", "timeless" and "nostalgic" vibe. So, we decided that our source of inspiration would be the old games, pop culture and game tropes as a whole (not just video games but also board games).
Scrapped boss idea
However, our game being highly focused on gamefeel, multiple playtesting sessions would be required. So, a prototype boss consisting of attacks of other bosses was created in order to run the first playtest and get some feedback.
Playtests feedbacks and identified issues
After the first playtests, a few issues have been identified and are now our central focus point aside from the production. These issues are the following :
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The isometric view makes it hard for players to see how close they are to the boss
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The player stops moving while attacking, negatively impacting the game's rythm
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Other player controller related issues have been identified (player slowing down, can't cancel an attack, player getting blocked inside the boss…)
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Some design choices creates situations that not only causes bugs but also negatively impact player experience at some points (floor being destroyed and the player respawning on top of it for instance)
"How many tries did it take to beat the boss ?" - 25 answers
Ultimately, the areas that need the most improvement are :
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Crank up the gamefeel
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Refine the player experience (especially the player controller)
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Review and redesign the patterns logic