Inspired by the game Thomas was Alone and formerly called The Power of Friendship, Moving On is a minimalist puzzle platformer where a single player controls multiple characters that must work together in order to reach their goal. Each character is gifted and hindered by their own individual characteristics. A story interwoven into the gameplay gives further context and adds a dimension of interpretation that personalize's the players's experience.
The Power of Friendship features:
- Two characters, Finley and Frankie, that you can switch between
- Interface, instructions, and storyline incorporated into game
- A camera that pans on the current character
- Multiple levels of puzzle goodness that test the brain!
Current features:
- Characters:
- Finley: Thinner and taller, jumps higher
- Frankie: Wider and shorter, jumps low, impervious to poison, can float on water
- Obstacles:
- Poison: Vats of poison as well as flying and falling poison
- Water: Bodies of water that players must traverse to get to their goal
- Trampolines: Allow characters to bounce and reach their goalposts
- Special Features:
- Gravity: While most of the game will operate under normal physics mechanics, certain areas of the game may trigger gravity to reverse or otherwise change.
- Audio: Background soundtrack as well as responsive audio to level completion and loss.
This project was implemented with the following technologies:
- Vanilla JavaScript for game logic, HTML element creation, and DOM manipulation (no Canvas!)
- CSS for styling
- Webpack for compilation of javascripts
- Audio that responds to collisions, jumps, coin collection, level completion, etc.
- Visual responsiveness: bouncing effects, simulation of moving water, etc.
- 2.5D background that moves dynamically to give a 3D-esque effect to gameplay
- More characters, more features, more levels, more types of objects
- Portals that teleport players to different areas of the level
- Vastly DRYer and less glitchy code, as well as more robust physics engines (Phaser? Canvas?)