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 obstacles and acorn formations for the park level.

• Scripting and playtesting all of these additions.

The Idea: The Park and Economy

This was a project I joined as a side project to do in addition to my normal work. Essentially, this game was already near completion and just needed some updates to truly get it out the door and into an official release. What I was tasked with was making additions to the park level and updating 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 that the store prices were incredibly high compared to games that inspired it, such as 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 to the player’s inventory. For example, a magnet’s first upgrade may cost 1000, but the second upgrade would be 3000, and the third would be 6000. This pricing style is something I added to 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, drew inspiration mainly from Jetpack Joyride for this, but I also looked at other games, such as Subway Surfers and Super Mario Run. Something I noticed about all of these games is how they use their currencies to either give you recommended routes to avoid their obstacles or put them in more difficult-to-reach places to incentivize riskier plays. An example of the latter 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 they desire, because the cables at the top stop halfway through the whole obstacle. These types of subtle, yet important choices are what make these games just that much more engaging, and I tried to replicate the process of making them with such obstacles.

The Lesson

The key lesson I learned from this project was about updating games. All of my work on other projects has always been about creating new, substantial pieces of content from scratch, mainly related to new levels, of course. However, this was the first project I joined, mainly to strengthen what was already in place. Like updating the store to be more friendly for the existing economy and bolstering the variety of obstacles on the park level. Which, by the way, that latter one was easily the harder challenge. The issue was creating more obstacles that naturally blended into the existing level design, while also balancing the difficulty. 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.