The running game

Hey everyone!

One of the things I’ve been working on last week was Neeva’s mini-game. And so I wanted to share a bit more about that :)

For context…

Somewhere along the story Keen will accidentially drink Neeva’s sportsdrink... Oops. Now you’d think Keen could just replace it. But this drink contained water from the planet Nereva just left, and was an important part of her sportsdiet. So time to get it back, and sweat it out!

Finding the right view for the game

To get Neeva’s drink back, Keen needs to climb up the treadmill and sweat it out. And so I tried to design a mini-game for that :) The basic idea was make a game where you have to hit the right steps as they pass beneath your feet. And for that I came up with this camera-view.

As you maybe remember, Keen made this treadmill from an old lawnmower and some ducktape – which was something I wanted to clartify by using this camera view. But doing it like this, made the game look quite boring I thought. And so I tried a different camera-angle, and placed the minigame on the treadmill-screen instead.

This also adds Neeva in view! And now she can encourage or comment on Keen as well, which is certainly more fun. And another added benifit was that I could now also show a distance tracker as part of the treadmill-screen.

I was already happy with this. But when I contacted my programmer, he asked if I could change the angle of the game- so that the footsteps came down in a straight line, instead of under an angle. Which made it easier to get it working.

I was a bit reluctant at first, but tried it anyway. And... I got an even better, more readable view back for it. And so this is the final setup for the mini-game.

Gamedesign

Well, those are the graphics. But before I can hand a game over to a programmer, I need to get very precise about the gameplay- and how everything works. And if you happen to be into that, then please have a look at the PDF I attached, showing my gamedesign :)

Well and that’s all for this year! 

Over here in the Netherlands it’s now newyears eve, so I’ll soon be eating some ‘oliebollen’ and watch the fireworks when the clock hits 12 o’clock.

Well, thanks for sharing this year with me, I really appriciate it! And I wish you all the best for next year,

happy 2025!

-Robin