Putty Pals is a co-operative puzzle platformer where you and a friend bounce, squish, swing and slingshot your way through dangerous worlds. The Putties were blown far away and must team up to travel across hazardous lands and collect Putty Seeds to get back home. Solve colour-based puzzles to progress and merge together to perform exhilarating techniques!
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Putty Pals started as a final year university project that was made in Unity. After positive reception at PAX Australia 2015 my team formed Harmonious Games, successfully earning Film Victoria funding and releasing the game on Steam and later the Switch.
Developer: Harmonious Games
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Platform: PC/Switch
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Genre: 2D Puzzle Platformer
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Years Developed: 2015-2016
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Roles:
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Game/Level Designer
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Concept/Environment Artist
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Software Used:
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Unity
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SourceTree/Github
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Asana
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Adobe Photoshop
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Paint Tool SAI
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Adobe Premiere Pro
Designing Co-operative Mechanics
In the game's early stages, the team and I collaborated on different mechanics we could use to reinforce the co-operative puzzle gameplay. Honing in on the elasticity and colour-theming of the Putties, it was imperative that teamwork was required to overcome each level. After some brainstorming, we went forward with the core abilities of being able to bounce on your ally to fly high, holding hands to carry each other forwards, and the fan-favourite Slingshot mechanic to pull against an anchor to send both Putties careening over long distances.
Developing the foundation for our levels
In the first year of development I took on level design responsibilities, establishing tilemap assets to rapidly prototype puzzles and experimenting with our mechanics. Through this iteration, I synergised our player mechanics with obstacle-exclusive functionality to hone in on our puzzle potential while reducing the cognitive load needed to play the characters. Utilising the colour-based obstacles heavily allowed me to easily be able to separate and unite the Putties, which became the cornerstone of many of the puzzles of the game.
Concepting the Putties and the world
Towards the latter half of my time on the project, my responsibilities shifted to a more art-based role and I developed concepts for the characters and the world of the game. As someone with red-green colourblindness it was really important to me that the Putties had significant visual distinction beyond just their colours. As such, I gave each Putty a unique facial expression and integrated patterns onto any assets of their colour to ensure the game remained accessible to colour-deficient players such as myself.
