Rolling Trouble

Rolling Trouble is a 2D puzzle game where the user draws lines around obstacles to guide the raccoon on one side of the level into the bin located on the other side of each level while trying to collect all the stars on each level.

The aim of the game is to guide the raccoon, located in the top left hand corner of the screen from the moment the user loads into a chosen level, by drawing lines for it to roll over and move towards the bin located in the bottom right hand corner of the level. There are, however, obstacles in the way to add difficulty, forcing the user to be creative with the path that needs to be created as well as three stars located in each level for the user to grab to add an extra challenge of trying to collect them all on the way to the bin.

After getting passed the first couple of levels, a ladybug is then added into the mix that moves to the left and right to slightly increase the difficulty which can get in the way of the raccoon if not timed properly causing the raccoon to lose its momentum and possible fail the level and forcing the user to attempt it again.

In ‘Rolling Trouble’, you play as a racoon who needs help travelling to bins across the world! Set in a variety of locations, the aim of the game is to guide the racoon into the bin at the other end of the level by drawing a line across the screen with your finger. Across the level there are three stars, and while it is not necessary to collect these, they have been included for a variety of reasons. The first reason we included the stars was to flesh out the game. In our prototypes for the game, we found the experience to be rather boring just guiding the racoon to the bin. The game was too easy, and we needed another hook to keep people interested. By adding in stars, we gave our game a larger scope of play. The casual player can roll through the levels collecting 0 stars and still enjoy the game (If that is their preferred way to play). However, if a user is more of a perfectionist/completionist, going through all of the levels to get Three Stars will add a new degree of challenge. The stars also provide replay-ability. We needed a reason to have the players come back and try and play again, and encouraging players to collect the stars fit the task. We wanted to avoid players just running through the game in 30 seconds and then never touching it again, and including 3 stars gave us flexibility to make difficult, engaging challenges for the user. 

If the prototype was to be extended into a full game, we had plans to implement a variety of gameplay features behind collecting stars. There are 5 levels included in the prototype build, however in the full game we planned to include more levels that required a certain amount of stars before the user could attempt them. The star requirement was set at 6, low enough that casual users did not have to change their playstyle and subtract from their enjoyment to get further in the game, but high enough that you would have to put thought into tackling one level to collect 2 stars. The plan was to increase user focus, rather than letting them tune off and play. This would ensure any player that wants to finish the game needs to spend time thinking about their way through at least one level. This was also done to try and encourage the casual audience to try and play the game in a different way to their usual play style, as well as enjoy the game at its full potential (We did not want to be strict on this and ruin some users enjoyment, but rather gave them a small push to try a different experience, even if it was just one level).

Level designs:

A very simple approach was taken in regards to level design. As ‘Rolling Trouble’ was designed as a casual game for all ages and people, the levels had to be designed relatively easy to figure out.

One of the issues faced in level design was screen constraints. There is no way to scroll the screen in our game, due to the nature of line drawing on touch, it felt very counteractive to make the player stop drawing the line half way through just to go and pan the screen further. In addition to this, having to constantly scroll the level back and forth while you figure out your desired path ended up feeling incredibly time consuming, verging on frustrating. It was at this point that the levels were to fit on one screen, however this posed a new problem. Now with limited space, there were constraints on how much you could fit on the screen, too many obstacles could end up crowding the screen, hurting the gameplay experience. The ladybird enemy was introduced to combat this issue, it meant we could leave larger open spaces, but still fill the area with gameplay.

As there would be no in-depth tutorial, the game had to be easy enough to figure out how to play just from loading up the first level. As western societies read from left to right, the natural approach was to have the player start on the left hand side, and try to make it over to the right of the screen. Obstacles were given wood textures, both to fit the theme, and to show the player that these obstacles would not be able to be passed through. 

Objectives:

Challenge: Avoid the Trees. Collect Stars!

Obstacles: Trees in the way of the course, they must be avoided to progress. Also in levels 3, 4 and 5 there is a ladybird that moves around, blocking the player's path. 

Win-State: Get the Racoon in the bucket to win!

Rewards: Your total star count goes up.