Fall or Nothing

Welcome to the world of the stuntman! You have one job and one job only: fall down the hill as fast as you can.

Enjoy a world of barely controllable, ragdoll physics in which you steer your stuntman through narrow gaps, past massive boulders, and try and catch gnarly air by hitting sick ramps. Trade off with a friend to see who can log the fastest times on each level!

Fall or Nothing features three levels to attempt a world record in, gut-busting ragdoll chaos, leaderboards to keep track of your best times, and a rockin' synth score. 

Notes

This was my first fully released game. It began as a prototype for a Game Design challenge in which I built 10 games across 20 weeks. I chose to expand this into a full game and release it on Steam in an effort to learn how to publish a game as well as how to make something I felt was worth asking for money for.

Intent

With Fall or Nothing, it was my goal to bring a game prototype to full release on Steam. This in turn would help me learn two things: 1) How to evolve a limited prototype into a fully fleshed out game with multiple levels, menus, and save settings. 2) How to publish a game on Steam which of course has its own learning curve.

Design Decisions

My design goal for this was to make a silly, Foddian-style game that could easily be played between friends as they pass around the controller to see who can get the top speeds on the leaderboard.

I deliberately chose to make the controls both simple and imperfect, as I wanted skill and dumb, ragdoll-physics luck to work hand-in-hand to create those laught-out-loud, "how did you do that?" moments. 

Process

The core design elements of imperfectly controlling a character as they fall down a very large hill were in place from the initial prototype. As I began to develop this into a deeper experience I had to consider a few questions.

• What would keep players coming back for more? This is where the leaderboards came into play, allowing players to dare their friends to try and beat their best times.
• How could I make the act of going down hill have more variety than simply "dodge trees?" It was at this point that the ramps came into being - the ramps in Fall or Nothing provide a speed boost to players while also introducing an element of risk as one cannot predict if they will land in a safe spot.
• How could I create variety across different levels? Here I decided to make three levels that each showcased different elements of what the game had. Ol' Faithful is meant to be a happy medium introduction level where skill and luck play in equally. Sky High leans into the "hit sick ramps" ethos of the game while also factoring in more player decision making and branching paths. Finally, Hell Spire is a pure skill run where the toughest players can show off their ability.
• What was the scope of this experience? With the intent being to learn how to finish a game, I deliberately chose a smaller scope. I decided early on I would build three separate levels with their own leaderboards as I felt that gave a variety of experiences while sparing me a multi-year development cycle that could hamper future learning.

Outcome

I successfully achieved my goal of releasing a full game and it is one I am very proud of. If I could go back to the beginning and change any one thing, I would have implemented a worldwide leaderboard to enhance the singleplayer experience and increase replayability. Otherwise, I feel that I accomplished what I set out to do and gained a big confidence boost going into future projects.