Appol’s Playground is a puzzle game centring the cartoonish apple – Crapple. In this game, your main companion will be a box. This box can be pushed, picked up, thrown and some other cool stuff.
The core mechanic of the game revolves around the box. You can freeze the box mid-air anytime and it will keep its momentum when you unfreeze it, allowing many creative puzzle levels. The game has 4 levels, each filled with recognizable puzzle elements such as moving platforms, doors, and lasers.
The video below showcases the first 2 levels of the game. Appol’s Playground later becomes Project Crapple using this game’s core mechanic as a foundation.
Working Process
1. Game mechanics development
The first step to creating the game was to come up with the mechanic and program it in a way that said mechanics can be played smoothly.
2. Level design
After settling on the mechanic, I coded 4 levels, each with different ways players can play with the mechanics.
3. Aesthetic
As a final step, I portray Crapple as a cartoonish character with carefree movement and a blank expression. Other assets are created to match the setting of a laboratory (Project Crapple). As for the box, I just felt lazy.
