Scroll Down For Brief Introduction
Overview
Red String is a 2-player puzzle platformer that base on the ancient Chinese myth of Cowherd and Weaver Girl Myth.
I wanted to design a game that required two players cooperating together in order to win. This was a challenge and meant that I had to carefully balance the environmental challenges and puzzles I created so that both players would be needed to solve them.
Game Balancing
We use a brutal but effective way to make sure players have to work together. We set the camera at the center of the red string. We can see this game in another way by treating the two characters as two sides of the string. Players need to work together to protect the red string.
In most of the two player symmetric games, one player will unconsciously carrying the other player. However, we set up the red string in a way that after being hit, it will force two players shrink to the hit point. As a result, the player cannot separate too much, and they need to communicate and discuss in real life to cooperate and find the right timing in the game.
Design
We use blue color to guide player as a visual language.
Most of the level stays in a small cell that can be contained inside of standard pico 8 screen.
Credits:
Athena Sullins - Music/SFX
Matt Simons - Art, Level Design
Rachel Heleva - Narrative Design, Art, Level Design, Programming
Yi Xie - Lead programmer, Level Design
A CDM198 Project
Winter 2021
UCDavis
Instructor: Josh McCoy