Retry
This is the first student project I made for my Games Programming course.
Retry is a 2D-Platformer containing elements of the Metroidvania and PuzzlePlatformer genre built in Unity.
The game takes place in a single interconnected level that the player can freely
explore.
Progression is tied to a unique death mechanic: when the player dies, they
respawn at their last activated checkpoint and receive a new ability corresponding to
the way that they died.
These abilities mainly expand the player’s movement options and allow access to
previously unreachable areas.
Through repeated
exploration, intentional deaths and newly gained abilities, the player gradually unlocks
additional parts of the level.
The player’s goal is to collect all collectibles distributed throughout the level. Most of
the collectibles are locked behind specific ability gates and often require a sequence
of correct activated checkpoints and correct intentional deaths to reach.
Comments
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love the concept!
desptie reading the description, intially took me a bit to get that ability after respawn aint really randomly assigned, from then on, very nice puzzle game :-)
Would be interesting to see some kind of boss fight implemented with the same concept in mind
The death as progression mechanic is a genuinely clever twist on Metroidvania design turning failure into a tool the player deliberately seeks out is such an elegant way to reframe the genre so I'm curious: how did you handle the design challenge of making intentional deaths feel purposeful rather than frustrating, especially when a collectible requires a specific sequence of checkpoints and deaths to reach?
Very good question and Iam glad you like the concept :D.
What I aimed to achieve is that the way a collectible can be reached is clearly communicated to the player. Every "ability gate" has a distinct look so the player knows what ability will get him to the collectible. Therefore the thought process isnt "How can I reach that" but rather "Where is the nearest lake to drown in". That way the player has a clear goal to work towards instead of dying over and over again to figure out a solution. The fun should come from exploration and logical thinking rather than trial and error.
Additionally, I purposefully kept the layout pretty simple and the number of natural hazards the player will accidentally die from pretty low because thats where frustration could kick in, especially when you have a checkpoint set far from where youre headed. Like you said every death should feel intentional and should be deliberately sought out by the player so each death results in progress towards the goal.
Obviously there could be a lot more depth added to this by giving the player more freedom and having alternate paths to reach the same collectible, especially once you were to project this concept onto a larger scale. That is definetly something I might revisit in the future.
ohh, i like how you made the ability gates clear so players can focus on planning their deaths instead of guessing, that makes the whole mechanic feel much more rewarding! Btw, I had a few more things I wanted to ask about the games, but comments aren’t the best place for it lol. are you on Discord or anywhere else by chance? no worries if not! :)
During Testing i have encountered a minor issue with bushes turning invisible. Whenever you come across an invisible block or wall there is actually supposed to be a bush there. You can destroy it by using the fire ability regardless of its visibility. Somehow they sometimes turn invisible in the web build, no clue why they do that xd