Stardrop is a 3D platformer collectathon game created almost entirely by me! Everything from the design, to the art/animation, to programming, writing, and sound were developed single-handedly over the course of a few years.
It is my favorite project I've worked on so far,
and I strive to create more stuff just like it!
-Available On-
Development Story
Stardrop entered development back in August of 2020. I had just entered my Junior year of highschool, and was inspired by my then recent playthrough of Super Mario 64 to make a video game of my own. I've always wanted to make video games, and had been studying game design for many years up to that point. So, I took the plunge. And for the next 4 years, that's what I did.
My introduction to independent game development was met with many challenges. But I had a fire in me. Every time I would encounter something I didn't know how to do, I would simply buckle down and learn. I taught myself Programming, 3D Modeling & Animation, Texture Art, Scripting and more to create my imagined game.
I designed characters, environments, levels, mechanics, and a narrative to give the game identity. I spent countless hours refining and polishing the game to turn it into something I could say was reflective of my the lofty vision I had in my head.
And after 4 years, I now know so much not only about many different aspects of game development, but about art as a whole.
I started with nothing, but now, I have so much more than just Stardrop.
Collaboration
Although the majority of Stardrop was developed single-handedly, I must admit- there are some things I simply cannot do. At least, not yet.
Music and illustrative art are two of those things.
In order to bring those aspects of the game to life, I had to collaborate with others. Luckily, I know some wonderfully talented artists that graciously assisted in that part of Stardrop's production. However, during these commissions, I was far from hands off. I actively worked alongside the music team and my illustrators to make sure that everything was quality and befitting of the project's style and aesthetic goals, often times down to the meticulous detail.​​​
This gave me a true first taste of being a creative director, and I loved it. Working in tandem with other creatives, construction feedback and quality standards, and being able to see each new rendition step closer and closer to the vision in my head was one of my favorite parts of development.
And in the end, the game feels aesthetically and auditorily cohesive. Collaboration was a huge success!
Designing: Gumdrop (The Player)
One of the first things I had to figure out when developing Stardrop was how to make the player feel good to control. Inspired by the idea that the player character should feel good to control even in an entirely blank room. So with that in mind, the quest for great game feel started.
I first defined what I would need to accomplish to craft a satisfying player character. Of course, some basic programming of 3D locomotion was in order, but after that? I eventually came to 3 core values:
Usability, Player Expression, and Feedback.
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Usability is the bread and butter of good game feel. Lots of replaying, lots of tweaking values. From the surface-level, "Does the jump go high enough? Does the dash go far enough?" To the more meticulous, "How long should the dash's hit detection be? How many frames should this animation be? How should certain actions effect the player's gravity or friction?" All of these and so many more questions were asked over and over throughout development. Tedious to be sure, but undeniably rewarding when you get it right.
Player Expression is next, and it comes in the form of allowing the player to easily have almost a "conversation" with the game. In this sense, the tool of communication is the player. The game must support the players unique decisions while keeping them bound to the rules and systems it has in place. This means that player expression extends past just code or design on the player's part, but the world as a whole. Players are given helpful invisible tools to support their conversation with the game, such as Coyote Time and animation cancels. While the world supports this conversation too, with intentional shortcuts and secrets baked into the level design. This insures that the player, when mastering the controls and level knowledge, can fluidly ebb and flow through the world- creating their own unique play experience.
Feedback encapsulates many more disciplines than just coding, I learned. You can make a character that should control and operate great in the program, but great game feel isn't accomplished solely through that. Ironically, you'd find that a blank cube with great code/implementation hardly has any game feel at all. That's because the true heroes of game feel come in the form of the visual and auditory. To make sure Gumdrop felt good to control, I needed to nail the locomotive/action animation and sounds. I needed to sell the characters weight, intentions, and appeal while keeping all player actions readable and distinct. I studied and focused on refining Key Poses, Squash & Stretch, Timing, Exaggeration, and Anticipation for the look of the character. Gumdrop holds in anticipation for certain strenuous actions, they squish when crouching and colliding with walls out of a dash, they emote in response to taking damage or performing large leaps. This helped them maintain readability between the animations while blending allowed me to seamlessly transition between them. The sound effects required a commitment to EQ, Uniqueness, and some Audacity knowledge. Each sound effect is distinct for each action, they reflect the gummy material of Gumdrop's body, pitch and speed fluctuations were implemented to keep each sound from being grating. This helped each action read independently from the others, and maintained the player's sense of control over the character.
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Each of these values took much trial and error to complete. I would say that the player character never stopped being developed and polished until some of the final stages of Stardrop's development.
Due to the foundation and understanding I had built from the beginning, though, I can confidently say that the game feel present in Gumdrop's design is very strong!
I'm proud of my little gummy... uh... Friend? Child? Creature? Thing?
