Forgetting the gimmick.

Introduction

For the past couple of weeks I have been working on a mechanic, with the focus of making this single mechanic stand out without the need for a full game around it.

As I continued designing I ended up losing sight of the original gimmick, I got carried away.

How do you end up losing sight that badly, and more importantly, what do you do once it happens?

The Mechanic

I started out from a previous idea called "The Impossible Jump", in which you had to jump across a gap and it was nearly impossible, the player required a specific angle and speed to cross the gap.

This inspired a mechanic around camera angle based jumping, the mechanic allowed the player to jump higher or lower depending on if they were looking up or down.

Losing Sight

That's where the trouble began, that lunge, that damned lunge...

I added a lunge mechanic while in the air. I wanted to create a way for the jumping to feel more fun, and it was, the dashing around in the air, the jumping power you could gain while flicking... It all added to a fantasy of feeling powerful.

I added enemies that ran away, I added a time-stop while charging, I added a slam ability with ragdolls and- and then the original selling point was gone.

The jump power could be removed and the game would remain fun.

I got carried away and forgot to account for where I started.

Once I noticed I tried to course correct, of course i did.

I brainstormed idea after idea on how to incorporate the angles, but every time I kept being brought back to this power fantasy, I couldn't simply shake it.

And the worst part, every change I made felt like a success, like I had figured something out while in reality the gimmick kept being reduced until it didn't matter.

The full realization that perhaps I might have gone too far came from reddit of all places.

I was struggling with the UI and asked a game design space for advice, instead I got hit by a brick.

"The game is confusing." "It feels more like a grenade than a jump." "The game is not intuitive."

Solutions

So what now?

Did I waste weeks of effort? No.

You learn and adapt.

In another world I would go back to the start, keep the current project as is, because it's not useless, everything created here can be used to make a different game, a different mechanic.

Sadly we live in our world. In our world we have deadlines, we don't get to start over.

Which leaves me with 2 options;

- Remove the original gimmick and lean into the new one.

- Go all in on clarity and keep the original gimmick.

Both are valid choices, both have their pros and cons, both are not what I wanted, but here I am.

I'm not ready to give up yet, I'm going with the second choice, visual clarity may save us after all!