Qubit
Qubit is a single player arcade mobile game with added puzzle mode. Control the Garbage Collector as he attempts various puzzles and challenges. Collect points to purchase upgrades and gain new abilities. Compete with your friends to see who can score the highest!
It is recommended to play Qubit on an Android Phone, as it was built for a mobile device.
Trailer
Commentary
Movement System
I spent a lot of time fine tuning the movement system. I received a lot of mixed feedback each time I tried tweaking it, so I just ended up have 3 different control schemes that the player can choose between.
The overall movement takes some getting used to. Unfortunately, since I played the game an uncountable number of times, I became very good at playing my own game. This meant that I slowly started to loose touch with how the controls felt, and the difficulty of the game. If there is one thing I have learned from making this game it's that you are the worst tester for your own game.
There is some nuance to the way the movement system is implemented. When the cube rolls to the edge of a tile, the player can actually roll backwards to avoid dying. This was designed for two reasons.
1) Players felt like they were dying too much and blamed the game.
2) This adds a little bit of extra skill and depth of gameplay if you can time your moves correctly.
If I were to go back a redo parts of this project, I would remember to do 2 things.
1) Bring in more playtesters and bring them in to the process earlier.
2) Slow the game down a lot. Difficulty discouraged a lot of people from playing this game, and was probably its biggest pitfall.
Entity Controllers
Each cube that rolls around on the game grid has very similar behavior, but one key difference: their controller.
Clones (blue) are allies that take their input directly from the player. Essentially when the player spawns a clone, they are controlling 2 (or more) cubes at the same time.
Viruses (red) are enemies that have AI input. Every time a virus chooses which direction to move, it makes the greediest choice and moves in the direction to get itself as close to the player as possible. This allows the viruses to be annoying enough to be a challenge, yet predictable enough to dodge with some clever planning.
From this point on, I've always favored quality over quantity, especially when my timelines are tight.
Forced Puzzle Mode
I thoroughly enjoy puzzle games, and therefore when I was making this game, I thought I'd add in a puzzle mode since the mechanics lent themselves well to puzzle based
The puzzle mode was a blast to create, but it ended up taxing the design of the game in the end. Instead of being a polished and focused experience, the gameplayed was stretched thin. Qubit showcases a large quantity of things to do: collect upgrades, unlock puzzles, and experience a story. But I wasn't able to polish the game to the quality I wanted before I began school and ended my side projects for the sake of studying.