Our intent was to teach the player the importance of planning ahead and thinking of the tunnel digging as a spatial puzzle. I'd say the best design is where the game becomes better from the developers being lazy. We would have had to make combined jump-and-attack animations for all different types of attacks if we had not forbidden it. Side Note: At least half of the reason for banning jumping and attacking was to reduce the animation complexity of Rusty. Had we allowed it, and had you been able to jump two tiles upwards, you would have been able to dig zig-zagging upward tunnels which would basically have removed the entire danger of getting stuck. For example, going from being able to jump one tile in height to two gives you a ton of extra mobility, as it allows you to build zig-zagging downward tunnels that you can then easily ascend when you need to return to the surface.īeing able to jump two tiles in height makes a huge difference for the prospective miner.Īnother basic rule we introduced was that you may not swing your pickaxe (and thus dig through the ground) while in the air.
We experimented a lot with different jumping heights, as this is the main thing that determines what kind of digging patterns you can use when you are descending. (I'm looking at you, Terraria!) We could have gone for blocks that are larger than the player, but that would make for an ever blockier-looking game, so in the end we chose the size you can see today. This makes for tunnels that are comfortable to navigate around as the player, avoiding the problem of snagging on small tiles. We decided early on to go for a simple square grid of tiles that you can dig through, with tiles about as large as the player. With this in mind, we started hammering out the basic setup of the game. The idea was that you need to consider the process of digging as a puzzle, where natural caves, falling rocks, impassable walls and other natural elements are the main obstacles in your path. If you would dig too deep without considering your route back to the surface, you would have no way to get out of the mine, and more importantly you would be unable to sell all those hard-earned minerals you had collected. "From the very beginning, we had the idea of keeping the player in a constant risk of getting stuck as the main source of tension in the game."įrom the very beginning, we had the idea of keeping the player in a constant risk of getting stuck as the main source of tension in the game. We wanted to create a set of digging mechanics that made this part of the game fun and exciting in its own right, and I will walk you through our unexpectedly long process of getting there. Strike the earth! What: Doing what the title says - diggingI'd like to describe the process we went through in designing the main mechanic of the game, which (as you may have guessed) is the digging. We released SteamWorld Dig in August 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS, then later to Steam, PS4, PS Vita, and most recently for the Wii U. The idea was highly influenced by the Xbox Live Indie title Miner Dig Deep, which I enjoyed but felt we could improve upon. The goal of the game is to dig deeper and gather resources, return to the surface and sell your loot, buying upgrades and then repeating the process. SteamWorld Dig is a platform mining adventure game where you play as a steam-driven robot called Rusty. Our most successful titles are Anthill (a mobile strategy game with some cool original mechanics) and the title I'd like to talk about today: SteamWorld Dig. Image & Form is a studio with old roots, but with recent dabs into game development.
Also read about ammo collection in Wolfenstein: The New Order and Amnesia's "sanity meter." Who: Olle Hakansson, lead designer, SteamWorld DigHi there! I'm Olle Hakansson, programmer and designer at Image & Form, a small Gothenburg-based developer in the tropical paradise called Sweden. See last week's installment, on Road Not Taken's movement system.
#Tile miner steam series
Game Design Deep Dive is a new series from Gamasutra, with the goal of shedding light on specific design features or mechanics within a video game, in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.
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