Hercules, Curse of the Hydra

Hercules: Curse of the Hydra. Underworld Level 8, level design enemy map

I have this rule about game design. Only innovate one new feature at a time in a game. You see, being a man of genteel nature and temperament I understand that you need to balance expectations and innovations in any new game development.

Your audience wants enough familiarity so they won’t be confused and enough of a new mechanic to create an engaging, fresh experience that sets the game apart. When you have a new player you have under 60 seconds to hook them and reward them in some way. If you leave a player dangling and confused for longer than that they will put down your game and never pick it up. You’ve missed your chance.

Now these innovations can take a number of forms: graphics, game play, platform. There are plenty of of chances t push the game too far.

A year ago when we started on Hercules I broke my rule. It turned out to be an odyssey that pushed us to create our best game to date.

The biggest leap was trying to create a massive real-time 3-D game for the iPhone.

1) It’s only a phone

Those were heady days a year ago. The fever for iPhone games was high. We decided to try expansive, massive, organic  3D worlds on the 1st gen iPhone. The thought was that all the other games out there at the time had fairly flat terrain and repeated their geometry. We wanted something epic. The levels were originally designed to wrap around in on themselves to provide great views and fighting over changing terrain. You can see the level design for level 9- the second stage of the underworld in the above picture and how we planned for enemy spawn points.

We were using Unity 2.0 at the time. Figuring out the pipeline for these levels was a major feat of trial and error. We’d done Unity games for iPhone before, but nothing on this scale. We were very limited by memory and processing power. In the end it turned out to be a huge victory. The game has a very distinctive feel. There were definite moments of panic though when a simple change it grouping could cause the frame rate to drop dramatically.

So we’ve got to make the level clear enough for people to know what to do, show them enough great graphics and keep the frame rate up and enough enemies on screen so it stays interesting. Who else needs drink?

2) Innovative controls

At the time and as a matter of convention, third person 3-D games tend to have a locked left hand joystick and set action buttons on the lower right. Our control mechanic allows for a relative joystick anywhere you place your thumb on the left. Just put down your thumb and drag.

Fight moves are trigger by slashes and taps on the right hand side with jumps and camera rotate reserved for the buttons there.

Our interface adapts to you. How you hold the device is up to you. How you controls Hercules is up to you. Try the game. It is intuitive and fun.

3) In-app purchase

It’s taken us a year to get the game out, but at the time it was quite a novel idea. Tired of the same weapons? Go ahead and pay to unlock them all plus a few bonus weapons you an’t get in game. At the time, in-app purchase wasn’t proven on the iPhone. We decided to go for it anyway. Granted, it’s not really a risk now. But at the time we thought it was hot sh**.

Hercules level 4,6 level design enemy map