Ink! was a yearlong project where we made a traditional old school platformer and added basic fighting mechanics to the game. The game went through several manifestations during its lifespan using Torque Game Builder. The first version of the game was really basic with only platforming. Soon we discovered we needed to handle things differently, and rewrote the game from scratch. This let us build a better system using only Torque Script. Ink! originally was a longer game with 4+ hours of gameplay. After receiving some advice, we shortened the game to about 20 minutes. Since our target audience was our future employers, this allowed us to show more features and unique content quickly. Ink! was submitted to the student competition in IGF 2008. Because of our hard work, we were also sent to GDC 2008 to hand out the game. This is a quick look at Ink! in its present form. You can also download the game on the left.

The original design for Ink! was multiple paths throughout the world that intersected with each other. When the player started the game, they would choose a power based on one of three paint cans. As the game progressed they would be constrained to the path they had the power for, until they found enough other paint cans to earn the other powers. In later levels we started having the player use powers chained together to get through the environment. We used a very long whiteboard, and drew out all levels. We could then walk through the level with each power, and make sure players could not get stuck. One thing we had to look out for was backtracking. We had to make sure players could not get stuck by backtracking down a path they did not have the ability to use. For example you could fall down a shaft designed for the wall jump power, and not be able to get back out.

The camera in Ink! took a lot of time, trial and error. We studied old platformers like Mario, and took ideas from them. As Mario rushes towards the center of the screen, the camera lags behind him a little allowing him to reach the center. As he stops, the camera catches up sliding a little to the right of him. We did the same thing, but allowed for our camera to switch depending on what direction we were looking. In areas where we had wall jumping, we had to create a camera cue to lock the camera so it would not shake as you switched from wall to wall. We had other camera cues to zoom the camera in when at a tight space. Before a large gap, we would use a camera cue to zoom the camera out so you could see further to make the jump. In addition the camera would always hint where you could go. When approaching a small drop, the camera would shift down slightly, hinting that downward movement was possible. When approaching a jump up, it would move up showing the path. We also had camera cues to stop the camera from moving in a specific direction. All of this helped to make sure the player did not jump blindly.

The jump in Ink! took a lot of iterations to get the "feel" right. We had to make sure the character didn't spring up to fast, or fall too soon. Air steer was something else we spent a lot of time working with. We ended up cutting the air steer speed when a player changes direction to prevent players from jumping to the height of the jump and then landing where they started. The height and distance of the jump was also carefully tuned. We wanted to make sure that the distance was predictable, so we could easily construct levels. When we were planning the levels we could specify how many jumps out or up and have it go from paper to computer accurately.

The game was designed around six powers. Three powers were provided by primary colored paint cans, and three from secondary colored paint cans. This also worked as a restriction to what paint cans you could grab. For example you had to have the power that the primary colors yellow and blue granted before you could grab green paint cans and earn the green power. We ended up removing this requirement when we shortened the game to simplify things for that version. The decision for six powers ended up being a little forced. Triple jump was a little excessive and wall stick never felt like it had a good purpose.

When we started to put combat into the game, we mapped the controls to the right analog stick. The direction the analog stick was moved would create different attacks. These were restricted to the cardinal directions, with air and ground having a different set of animations. Attacking down while in the air would move the player straight down. Attacking forward while in the air would cause the player to do a forward flip. If you were on the ground and attacking forward, you could start a combo. Timing the next swing forward correctly could chain attacks and timing these attack perfectly would create critical hits dealing double damage. Enemies after a hit would be knocked back a little and stunned for a short period of time. Emergent combos came into the game from this. For example you could drop from the sky onto a weak enemy, popping him up into the air, and then juggle him with an up attack until he was dead. We tried to blend brawling and platforming by adding bonuses for attacking from a great height or off of a walls. This gave us a weak connection between the brawling and platforming. We should have done more to mix the elements together. The decision to put combat on the right analog stick was a poor one on my part, and by the end of the project we provided several other control options.

This is an older interview, from before we submitted the game to IGF. The game at the point of the video still featured many levels and multiple paths. If you watch the video you can see how we did our camera cues, parallax scrolling, and me with "pink" hair. More videos can be viewed at the official Ink! website.