Genre
Endless Arcade
relaxed
Platform
Android play store
Engine
Unreal engine 4.27
Time
10 weeks
Team Size
Solo Developer
Link to game
Game Overview
Rorra is a mobile game that I made for the gaming company Parity Games as part of an advertising campaign for their company and their flagship game, Island of Winds.
The main idea for Rorra was to make an endless arcade game, inspired by games like Flappy Bird, Doodle Jump etc., where players try to beat their high score and compare it with other players.
The main thing I wanted to learn while making Rorra was to better understand splines, their applications in UE4, and more broadly how to create engaging mobile games using UE4.
How is Rórra played
I wanted to make an easy to understand, engaging game, with simple game mechanics that almost anyone could pick up and enjoy immediately. A game that brings out the competitiveness in the player.
The player is tasked with protecting a bird called Rorra which moves in a constant circular pattern. The player can change the speed at which it flies and receives points for every full circle completed.
At the same time the player has to avoid fireballs that appear at random. If the bird gets hit the player loses. To begin with, the fireballs only move in a straight line. For every 5 points the player scores he unlocks different movement patterns for the fireballs, for example curved, spiral, or zig-zag. After scoring 10 points, blue gems are unlocked that spawn randomly. If the player captures those he gets one additional point.
After all patterns are unlocked the overall speed is slightly increased along with the spawn rate of enemies.
Who is it made for?
My intention was to make it mechanically simple but fairly difficult to master and to challenge the player to break their high score.
The biggest inspiration came from games like Flappy Bird and Doodle Jump and I felt that this approach would appeal to the widest player base.
For Rorra i wanted to break away from the cartoony aesthetics that are prevalent in mobile games and instead go for a more relaxed vibe with a muted colour scheme.
What I learned and what I would change
1. Player retention is hard and demands a lot of love and care. I think that adding some type of external currency system that could be used for different player skins or environments would benefit the game greatly. Also adding an online competitive element that shows the top score of the day could benefit the social aspect of the game.
2. Working with a tight development schedule requires the game designer to look for creative solutions for optimising the workflow, i.e making one asset or effect that fills multiple roles without it being too repetitive or boring for the player.
3. Make the UI bigger and more clear. The number one request that I got from test players while designing the game was that the UI was a bit unclear. The solution could be to add text to the settings buttons and adding a quick tutorial text at the beginning of the game.
In conclusion
I am really proud of my work on Rorra. Though there are changes that I would like to make, I believe that Rorra is currently the most conceptually concise design project that I have worked on and I had a lot of fun creating it.
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Genre
Endless Arcade
relaxed
Platform
Android play store
Engine
Unreal engine 4.27
Time
10 weeks
Team Size
Solo developer
Link to game
Game Overview
Rorra is a mobile game that I made for the gaming company Parity Games as part of an advertising campaign for their company and their flagship game, Island of Winds.
The main idea for Rorra was to make an endless arcade game, inspired by games like Flappy Bird, Doodle Jump etc., where players try to beat their high score and compare it with other players.
The main thing I wanted to learn while making Rorra was to better understand splines, their applications in UE4, and more broadly how to create engaging mobile games using UE4.
How is Rórra played
I aimed to create an easily comprehensible, captivating game featuring straightforward game mechanics that virtually anyone could quickly grasp and enjoy. A game that evokes the player's competitive spirit. The player's mission is to guard a bird named Rorra, which moves in a continuous circular motion. The player can adjust its flying speed and accumulates points for each full circle made. Simultaneously, the player must dodge randomly appearing fireballs. If Rorra is struck, the player fails. Initially, fireballs only travel in a straight path. For every 5 points earned, the player unlocks new fireball movement patterns, such as curved, spiral, or zig-zag. After reaching 10 points, blue gems become accessible and spawn at random. Capturing them grants the player an extra point each. Once all patterns are unlocked, the overall game speed and enemy spawn rate incrementally increase.
who is it made for?
My intention was to make it mechanically simple but fairly difficult to master and to challenge the player to break their high score.
The biggest inspiration came from games like Flappy Bird and Doodle Jump and I felt that this approach would appeal to the widest player base.
For Rorra i wanted to break away from the cartoony aesthetics that are prevalent in mobile games and instead go for a more relaxed vibe with a muted colour scheme.