Balance

Genre: Balancing puzzle game, Spatial puzzle game

Engine: Unreal engine 4

Platform: PC/Mac

Team: Krishna Teja B & Alafiya H

Balance is a puzzle game that is about the act of balancing objects and spatial mapping. The player is given a set of different blocks with which they scale from one platform to the other to clear the puzzle

Balance was made as part of the Mechanics and Level Design module in the third semester of our master's course. The brief given was to make a puzzle game with modular levels.

Design

Balance is designed around the idea of balancing objects of various sizes and weights on top of each other and "build your way to Heaven". For the prototype, we decided to have a set End platform that the players had to reach.

The core loop was to select the Right Block and stack it on the existing structure till they reached the end platform. Players were expected to assess the distance they had to reach, assess the mass of the selected block w.r.t the structural integrety of what they had built so far and make the selection.

Stack Block

Select Block

Build Stable Structure

Reach End Platform

Mechanics

Block Interactions

The basic mechanic of balance is stacking various blocks on top of each other. While stacking blocks the player has to keep in mind the position of the block and the mass of the block. The game is set in a isometric point of view and the distances are conveyed through shadows acting as front and side projections of the current scene.

Move Block

Rotate Block

Change Block Pivot

Stack Interactions

Block Stacking

Distance Assessment

Mass Assessment

Level Design

Level design of balance revolves around the dimensions on the basic unit block and modularity. A basic level includes the start and end platforms, intermediate platforms, and obstacles.

The height of every platform/obstacle is a multiple of the basic unit. The blocks used to solve the puzzle are also multiples of the same basic unit block lending to multiple ways of covering the same height. This adds an element of choice both in terms of gameplay and in terms of solving the puzzle itself.