About HOPE
University | Unity | 6 Weeks
HOPE is a minimalist hyper-casual exploration of being in a rut and climbing out of it.
This release helped me process the significance of game dev as personal expression vs as commercial product.
Originally released in Q1 2021
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I have since removed this game from the Android Play Store as I am no longer comfortable with the quality of the public release - the project was always for my own reasons rather than the pursuit of commercial success.
While I may revisit the project in the future, I am currently interested in pursuing other ideas.
⚠️ For those interested, you can still access the apk file here.
Notable Work
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Save system utilising a binary formatting to guard against common save file editors of the time.
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Non-obtrusive advertisements using unity's API.
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A scriptable object framework for shop item creation.
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Exclusively event-driven UI.
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Mobile focused UX, including haptics and minimisation-friendly load calls.
Core Loop
The primary loop of HOPE is very simple - the player must avoid a stream of wall mounted obstacles as they attempt to climb further and further up. It's a classic infinite runner setup best described as Chrome's Dinosaur Game but with a ceiling.
The player can tap for a jump or hold to switch to the other side of the screen, with currency appearing in the middle near challenging sections to tempt players into taking risks.
Failing results in the player falling back to the menu screen, with the character having to be thrown upwards to continue climbing.
Items & Store
The store is the real heart of this project, encompassing the secondary and tertiary gameplay loops.
I wanted to be able to add new items quickly and easily in the editor rather than having to define every instance in code. To that end I utilised scriptable objects to be able to define store items and several subtypes (world items, buffs, gameplay triggers, etc).
As a design pattern with a native Unity implementation it affords a lot of benefits over the alternatives.
To keep things simple I made each item function as its own link in the progression chain, telling the next item to be added to the store once purchased.
In a larger project this approach has the potential to be dangerous since the next item in the chain has to be manually selected per object, however futureproofing too early in such a small project is equally likely to cause issues at this scale.
While my programming style has since changed, the shown code does indicate my rough approach to logic.
Progression
The overarching narrative is presented through the store and it's two currencies: coin and willpower.
Coins appear frequently and are easily obtainable, with attractive visual items being relatively cheap to coax initial player investment into them. This contrasts willpower as a currency which is much harder to acquire and rewards vague items that represent harder fought progress being made.
This dichotomy plays into the central theme of short term, often commercial, happiness verses long term joy that arises through consistent effort and conscious action.
Analysis & Thoughts
As a young developer, HOPE taught me a collection of very important lessons that I have carried through the rest of my career. Using game dev as means of emotional expression and exploration isn't uncommon but it is one of the discussions that arises fewer times than it possibly deserves.
Professionally, HOPE made it abundantly clear how important physically watching people play your work is. Reports and reviews tell a small part of a much larger, much more infuriating, puzzle. Many of the current iterations wouldn't exist without hearing offhanded comments or noticing odd player decisions arising from accidental reinforcement.
In the years since releasing this I have grown to expect a higher level of polish and visual presentation from myself. I don't think the existing work is unsalvageable, quite the opposite, but I have grown beyond what little else this can offer me; no challenge or catharsis is to be found here and I believe that whatever else people want to see can be found elsewhere in my work. HOPE did its job and helped teach me how to do my own.