Fractal Sum
Report
Fractal Sum was my first solo game project after having studied design and programming for a year and a half prior, and I hold nothing but pride for the end result.
Upon starting development I hadn’t a clue what the game was going to be. All I knew is that I had a plan for my following project (Fractal Arena), and felt it best to make the first project in such a way that as many of systems as possible could be copied over to save on production time. This resulted in a unique thought process on my end, since I had already established the game’s systems before forming the core of the experience, the core needed to be flexible enough to fit the tools I had made. Knowing this I turned to a central experience I was both comfortable with and knew had plenty of flexibility and potential: basic addition.
The objective was simple, bounce numbered shapes into one another. When the two shapes combine, their numbers add. Each wave asks you to create the number 10 either two or three times, once you do, all the shapes despawn in preparation for the next wave. If you touch a shape you get hurt, varying on the shape’s value.
There was one issue in this design. What would happen if the player adds to a number greater than 10? Counting a number greater than 10 the same as a normal 10 would be no good as players could just effortlessly throw together numbers until they get large enough. Meanwhile leaving large numbers be would be dull as with only the ability to add, a number higher than 10 would never lower to the desired value.
This led to the key mechanic that solidified the project’s success. Creating a number over 10 immediately moves the game into a chaotic state where every new number spawned is now negative. The play is the same, nothing new needs to be taught (assuming the player knows how subtraction works), however the game is now notably more difficult. Best of all, this difficulty spike is the fault of the player’s own carelessness, and thus doesn’t feel unnatural in the flow of the game. Naturally the player immediately realizes their mistake for going against the game’s one objective and begins to lower the value back to beneath 10.
However, before doing so and ultimately returning to the base state of the game, even more opportunities present themselves. For instance, what should happen if the player adds to 0? Or how should the game respond if the player forms a -10? I decided to take both of these cases and make the most of them. With the special case of "0" I chose a more neutral route, where a giant, harmless, indestructible “0” shape is formed and remains in play for the rest of the game. Due to this "0" taking up space, it changes the layout of the game, resulting in dynamic map changes that don’t inherently harm or benefit the player, only leading to a “different” experience. Secondly, I took the obvious route with the -10, causing the player to be judged audibly by the announcer for doing the exact opposite of what was asked of them. The player is then punished by moving the “remaining tens” counter up one instead of down one.
On top of a simplistic yet enjoyable system, a lot of effort was put into ensuring the game played fluidly. This is reflected in the smooth yet responsive movement, all the way to the inevitable death animation tying in with audio cues and screen shake.
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