The History of Project Detonator
Project Detonator started with Bobby Bath and I during our time at Capcom. It was then that we put it down on a whiteboard as a few doodles and some ideas. It quickly turned into something bigger than that, as the inspiration for the project led to a love for it. The project ended up being more of an experiment in the vein of Metroid and Castlevania, mostly because we were having fun making something that we ourselves really wanted to play. I did a lot of side-scrolling gameplay maps, something I'd never done much of before, along with a small, but interesting story, and simple jumping/shooting mechanics to match. Since we were thinking about mobile devices, we definitely didn't want to put a digital pad as the means of control.
In the beginning we were just excited to be designing something that was in-line with our interests, which Detonator certainly was. We loved the idea of making it feel like a Metroid design, with a biological sci-fi theme. Mixed in is a few parts Nausicaa and Howl's Moving Castle. As with any project it started with brainstorming ideas and the world, the characters that might inhabit it, and how it all came to be. From there Bobby concepted the hero Character, while I put together a sprite map for level blocking. I drew out a few area maps that resulted in several gameplay ideas. This lead to a world design after doing some research on the limitations of the iPhone at the time.
Bobby's concept of what the world might look like, and the robots that inhabited it
The premise of the game was that it put the player in control of a special unit called a Detonator. The Detonators were built as part of an escape plan that would take 50 years to fulfill. Their intended purpose was to detonate the core of the planet with biological information that would "reboot it" and allow nature to wreak havok in order to restore it to its' natural state, before the humans, their technology, and their lust to control it all.
After the initial brainstorm session, I went and grabbed a bunch of paintings from Bobby's website, along with some that he'd already done for Detonator and crafted them into a string of scenarios for a story.
Board of Concepts and Story. Concepts are all Bobby Bath, story was me.
The World Map is comprised of several different areas intended to have a different look and offer unique gameplay moments to help it stand out and be a memorable location. Each area features puzzles, and has different parts of the games' story, which existed in the way of digital disc recordings the Player could pick up and view. The story is really up to the player to uncover, although there would be scenes shown when uncovering new upgrades.
After thinking a lot about what kind of upgrades the Detonators might employ, I put together a quick map, with a plan for how the player would traverse the world in search for the Upgrades that allow the final mission to be completed. I plotted the locations of the Upgrades in areas where it made sense to give them out through story progression, with a plan to have tutorial sections close by to teach the player about the respective Upgrade.
I didn't want to alienate players (especially on mobile) by giving them hard to understand gameplay mechanics, but I also didn't want to put a bunch of well-known already been-there-done-that things either. Above all, they had to be mechanics that allow me to interact with the World and its inhabitants in interesting ways.
- Power Fist - Adds rocket boosts to the forearms of the Detonator allowing the player to smash through cracked walls.
- Create - Adds the ability to form particles from the air that create platforms for the player to jump on to reach previously unaccessible areas
- Electric Shield - Adds ability to traverse water and lava
- Leech - Adds ability to take health from objects to restore player health
- Hibernate - Adds ability to become undetectable by machines for a limited amount of time
- Dash Slide - Adds rocket boosts to the calves of the Detonator, allowing the player to squeeze into tight areas by sliding underneath them, and also allows the player to run really fast, giving the ability to jump further than previously
After this, I started researching art and environments with Bobby, in order to come up with the feel for the game and the different areas we wanted to build. Again, this went smoothly because Bobby and I share much of the same tastes and agreed quickly on the reference that we liked to use. Bobby set to concepts and I set to building.
The World Map for Detonator
The World Map is constructed like that of a Metroid, or a Castlevania or a Zelda game - you need to upgrade your Detonator with special abilities to overcome environmental barriers and reach new locations, to continue to obtain more upgrades and face greater challenges, until eventually detonating the planet. The colored lines in the image above show the path to each environmental upgrade, which allows the player to pass environmental barriers. There were 5 of these upgrades planned for the game, with the planned length of the single player game not exceeding 5 hours.
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I wrote up some map designs, with example puzzles, expected path and notes, etc. Some were in more of a complete state, and others are quite rough. I also created sprite blocks to quickly block out levels, and get to prototyping & iteration.
The plan was to cater each spot to a specific play-style. For example, Hidden Forest has plenty of platforming on small, constrained spaces, where-as the Drunken Passageway is mostly verticality and jumping.
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Hidden Forest
Drunken Passageway
The Gravity Room
Sunken Ship
Grave of Adam
Secret Area - First Contact
Manufactured Evil
Floating Loneliness
Scarred Earth
The Maps ranged from smaller, simple puzzles to the craziness of "Scarred Earth", which has many puzzles and requires several abilities.
It wasn't long spent on the project before the realities of life came crashing down. The truth is that side projects require a lot of time and energy. If either of those is missing, the dedication and determination to finishing a project can quickly diminish. Such was the fate of Project Detonator. The Dead Rising games took a lot of my creative energy and passion. Perhaps when my kids are older, I will return to it if Bobby is up for the fun!
It wasn't long spent on the project before the realities of life came crashing down. The truth is that side projects require a lot of time and energy. If either of those is missing, the dedication and determination to finishing a project can quickly diminish. Such was the fate of Project Detonator. The Dead Rising games took a lot of my creative energy and passion. Perhaps when my kids are older, I will return to it if Bobby is up for the fun!