User Experience - BIGBOSSKANE/Body_Builder_Game GitHub Wiki
The gamer playing through Bodybuilders should feel a sense of adaptive learning and mastery. Their modular character has the capacity to pick up and drop components and upgrades which can help or hinder their progress, and they must use these alongside some platforming skills navigate puzzling levels.
Entering the Game
The player will be met by a fairly minimalist menu screen, featuring a central column of options in sleek white text, against a black silhouetted background of a city in a colourful sunset. If they don't have a save file yet, the largest option will be "New Game", but they will also be able to access settings to alter the volume and audio mixing, and the quit button to leave. A "Load Game" option will be there but greyed out on the first time the game is opened, but if the player has a save file, it will swap positions and sizes with the "New Game" button, allowing the player to quickly get back into their game.
The Overworld
The first time a player starts a game, it will open immediately to the start cinematic, and move on to the gameplay. However, whenever a player loads the game, exits from a level to the level select, or completes a district, they will be moved to this screen.
The overworld design is split into several screens divided by the district. Running vertically through the page (just below the horizon), is a set of white and grey rings that indicate the linear level structure. If a ring is white, the level has been unlocked. If it is grey, the player has not reached that level, yet. The rings also come in three sizes. Medium size rings serve the purposes detailed above (indicating normal levels), while a large ring will be the last in each district, used to represent the confrontation with the boss. Smaller rings appear both along this linear line and descending below each medium ring. The ones below each medium ring indicate the collectables found in each level, starting grey, and then becoming solid white circles when found. The ones between each medium (level) ring will always remain grey and are used to add visual interest as the player shifts between levels. When the player is hovering over a level, the ring fills in to become a solid coloured circle and grows very slightly in size. When the player presses the side key or clicks another level, the circle will become a ring of the size it previously was, and the visual effect of filling in and expanding the circle will travel all the way along the line of rings until it reaches the next level (if the player presses an arrow key or the one that was clicked on.
The background behind this will show a view of silhouettes of both the district and the ground, with a vibrant skyline that uses a saturated colour palette from that district. Alternatively, the level that the player selects could be represented by the robot's head, to tie it in closer to the game (this will be easy to swap out so we can see what works better visually once we have built the screen).
Buttons used to navigate back to the main screen, and the settings screen will be found at the bottom, either in white, grey, or the same colour as the sky.
Pressing the side arrow key at the edge of the line of rings will swipe the screen to the next district, with its own colour scheme and unique silhouetted city design.
In-Game Experience
The game's central mechanic is the novel feature of detachable limbs. The player is just a robot head, but they can attach to arms or legs to gain increased mobility, climbing and carrying abilities. While these features alone can be used to create a suite of early levels, players will be continually introduced to more complex interactions and abilities.
Eventually, they will come across augmented parts, which will unlock entirely new puzzle elements and ways to navigate through each level. Each District will have a core focus of one unique set of arms, and one set of legs, which will be incorporated into most of the levels so as to allow the player to advance to mastery with each. A focus on these tailored puzzles, however, should not mean that previous upgrades are excluded. Each upgrade should appear at least once in every ten consecutive levels so that the player does not forget how to use it.
The 1st level (5 minute experience)
The player will start as just a head in a stormwater tunnel, and will only be able to roll forwards. They will encounter a red button on the floor, and rolling across it will open a door (letting them know that red buttons are switches and don't need constant pressure to remain active). From here, the player will be able to continue rolling on to the main part of the 1st level.
The player will have some time to roll around and feel the limitations of the head. Above them will be some platforms of varying heights. Although they will be able to jump onto very low platforms, the higher ones are impossible to reach. If they keep travelling right, they will find legs, which give them enhanced speed and vertical mobility, contrasting the previous limitations of the head and letting them know straight away that it's pretty good to have upgrades. Next to the legs on the right will be a wall, so the player will move back and ascend up the platforms that they previously couldn't.
It is at about this stage that the player would have instinctively pushed "Spacebar" with the intention of jumping, finding instead that it ejects their head from their legs, giving them a short jump boost. This might be frustrating at first, but they will quickly adapt to it (and it is effectively a jump if the player has parts), and it will probably save us even having to tell the player what the detach button is, as they will encounter it themselves. It also thematically fits the story of a robot that had just fallen apart.
If this is not working based on user feedback, we may incorporate controls as large posters on the back walls of the level, next to any new button the player needs to interact with something.
At the top of the platforms, the player will encounter another door connected to a red button, which they will bypass easily by walking over the button. They will pass some platforms leading upwards, and then come across a door with a blue button, and most likely experiment by taking the same approach. In this case, the door will always rise back up before they can move through it, as this button requires pressure on it (there would also be heavy click whenever weight is applied or removed). If they detach their legs and leave them on the button, they will find that the door stays open, allowing them to roll their head through, but on the other side is a platform too high for the head to jump too. The player will instead have to double back, ascending the platforms before the blue button to see what other tools are available to them.
Here they will encounter another reason to eject their head, in the form of a passageway short enough for only their head to pass through. Twice now the player has encountered 2 problems which encourage them to discard the advantages of the mobility legs provide, setting the tone for the game, in which the player will need to be regularly cycling through configurations to overcome puzzles.
Rolling through the passageway, they find that it loops back if the player can jump up to the platform above the tunnel, they will not be able to do this as just a head though, so instead they'll need to move into the arms adjacent to them. They will find this increases their movement and jump speed slightly (not as much as the legs do), allowing them to ascend through the upper passage. At the top, a red button unlocks a horizontal door on which a box sits. The player will then fall back down near the legs, now with a box which they can pick up using the "f" key (which will likely be detailed using a poster on the background). The player can then reconnect to their legs, forming a full body, pick up the box, and platform back to the blue pressure button, opening the door and allowing them to move through to the end of the level, which will be identified by rays of light shining down from a storm drain below.