SupaFlipMan!!

Take control of the battlefield by flipping the ground!

Origins of the project

SupaFlipMan!! is the final project of the first year of the Game Design program at Isart DIGITAL Paris. It is the most important project of the year as students from different courses in the school work together to create a game. It includes students from the Game Design, Programming, and Sound & Music Design courses. This project is important because it is where we can experience a collaboration close to the ones in the video game industry. It is formative when it comes to communication and group dynamics. I was part of the Abricot team composed of 6 game designers, 3 programmers, and 1 sound & music designer. We made the game in a short amount of time.

Concept of the game

SupaFlipMan!! is a wacky beat ’em-all game where a superhero has to clear rooms filled with enemies before reaching the end of the level. To help with his fights, the player can hit switches to flip the ground and reveal a new room. The game revolves around the possibility to create traps and use the environment against your enemies.

Before proceeding to the new room, the player has to kill every enemy present on both sides of the room. A tutorial is present in the first level of the game to let new players learn about the controls. Different combos can be used with different effects such as a stomp having an area of effect on surrounding enemies. The most important move is the slide, which is similar to a dash that can be performed by the player to avoid damage. If you slide through enemies and objects, you can lift them in the air. And if you flip the ground simultaneously, you will transport them to the other side of the room with you!

There is also a combo meter where you can « spend » some of it to heal yourself or get a speed boost. But be careful, the moment you take damage, your combo meter will reset to zero!

Development

The game has been developed with the Unity engine and programmed in C#.

Since there are multiple specialized students inside the Abricot development team, tasks have been assigned depending on what each student was able to do. While the programmers and the music & sound designer were busy working on their parts, I and the other game designers were designing the game. The idea of the concept came from us. We worked on the gameplay mechanics, created the menus, and designed the levels. Each game designer had to create his level. For my level, the third one, I wanted to emphasize the ability to bring objects and enemies to the other side of the room with the help of the slide. Since TNT crates explode in contact with acid puddles, the player can try to kill enemies with the help of these explosions. I wanted the player to prepare traps for the enemies and take advantage of the battlefield by using the game’s main feature.

The game designers were also in charge of searching the 3D assets and creating the animations. We made sure to make the game look beautiful by utilizing the tools provided by the Unity engine. We also took particular attention to the game feel to make the game more enjoyable.

Communication was the key to success. Explaining what the game designer imagined for the game to the rest of the team was a big challenge. But we managed to bring our ideas by creating design documents such as the Game Design Document and One Page Document. We held weekly reunions to keep in touch with everybody’s work and maintained communication throughout the project’s development.

Influences

We mainly took influences from the Super Sentaï TV shows mostly popular in Japan. We wanted to create a fun and wacky story about a superhero who loves to show off while fighting hordes of enemies. From this, we took a look at a beat’em all game also influenced by Super Sentaï which is Viewtiful Joe. The art direction is stylized and the fights are fast-paced and enjoyable.