ORBRO
ORBRO is a single player/cooperative mobile game where the player avoids crashing their orbs into each other or meteors that fall from the sky. ORBRO is the first mobile game I developed, and I released it on Google Play.
It is recommended to play ORBRO on an Android Phone, as it was built for a mobile device.
1-Player / 2-Player
I created ORBRO to be played as a casual 2-player game for a single device, but technically you can play the game by yourself, and juggle both of the rotating orbs on your own. The key to this game is about coordination, and when two players share one person's phone to play ORBRO, coordination is not always easy to achieve.
Rolling speeds
One of the trickier design problems I encountered was that the orbs rolled at the same speed. When they did, the orbs would always cross paths at the same time (around the top and bottom) and it was easy and predictable when the player was supposed to jump. This made the game boring and repetitive.
By tapping the left or right side of the screen, you make one of the orbs jump. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to connect each side to each orb specifically. I tried adding lines or arrows that would point to the orb connected to each side, but it became too cluttered and confusing. In the end, I found players usually remembered which colored orb they were controlling, and the memorization added a little bit of tasteful challenge. Other than starting the orbs on the appropriate side, the color of the multiplier text in the top corners also match the side's associated orbs.
First, I altered the orbs so that one of them was ever so slightly faster than the other. This meant that their meeting places around the planet-like center was always moving.
Then I also added in the reverse bubbles that, when gathered, reverse the direction both players are rolling. I made them worth 5x more than normal points because it was a dangerous and disorienting mechanic. Sometimes, if the player was not careful and collected the reverse bubbles, they would slow down and stop right on top of the other orb!