A 2D top-down runner. Made in Game Maker 8.1 as part of a game design course at UC Santa Cruz.

Overview

You play as a Pizzasaurus Rex that must escape his Dino-Pizza island after a dangerous Cheese-Volcano eruption. Avoiding obstacles that slow you down while being chased by Cheese-Lava is important while you are trying to Escape. Also, in order to keep up your energy, you must collect toppings on your way to the finish line of each level. Try playing Pizzasaurus Rex on “Hard” mode in order to test your true skill!

Roles and Contributions

Game Designer

As part of a two person team, I helped come up with the core mechanics of the game to maximize rewarding gameplay with the simplest mechanics. Taking inspiration from Sonic the Hedgehog games, we designed the game to feel rewarding by giving paths for the player to gain/maintain momentum while avoiding obstacles.

Gameplay/UI Programmer

I implemented the player controls to give a sense of momentum as you run progressively faster, and also feel the harsh slow-down of running into obstacles. In order to add variety to the game, a helmet was added as a collectible which can break through barriers a few times before falling apart. This gave players something else besides food to look out for and collect, as well as making easier levels more fun and rewarding strategy for the harder levels.

For each level there is a set amount of food that can be collected. The amount of food found determines the score shown at the end of the level(seen in the above screenshot). In order to show the player how much food is available in a given level, I designed and coded the footprint meter that shows how much the player has collected compared to the total amount of food available.

Level Designer

I designed several of the game’s levels with the goal of creating a great feeling of flow as you race through the prehistoric landscape. Since the player can only see a little bit ahead, I had to make sure that turns in the terrain were gradual and didn’t feel impossible. I also made sure to add paths that would reward exploration with shortcuts and the helmet collectible.