Soul Kin Post Mortem
Script for the video:
Evan: Initial Pitch
Soul Kin is a two player cooperative puzzle-platformer, that tasks both of the players with combining their unique skills and abilities as they work their way through environmental puzzles and obstacles. Over the course of its four month development, Soul Kin underwent numerous design revisions which ranged from being small iterations upon existing mechanics to large impactful changes to our systems that would drastically change the way our game was experienced.
Although they were sometimes painful, all of these changes were made as we attempted to create the best possible experience for the game vision that we imagined. Our vision for Soul Kin did not always stay the same throughout the whole project either, as the initial pitch had more of a focus on and was heavily influenced by turn-based JRPG combat systems as well as the action-adventure aspects of metroidvania styled games. Although we would later learn that Soul Kin was trying to be too much at the same time, we had clear inspirations and goals, and with them we began development.
Brian: Early versions
During the early stages of development, our original idea was for the game to be a 2.5D puzzle platformer with turn based combat. We had enemies that would trigger our turned based combat system and make the players choose different abilities to defeat enemies while working together. After the combat ended they would return to solving puzzle to complete levels. Players originally had to select their abilities with the D-Pad before they could use them. Our beginning levels had a number of different themes that we ended up scrapping, involving ice and electricity. Our goal was to keep both players working together to solve puzzles at all times. I feel we really kept our original design idea even though we went through a number of different themes and iterations of the game.
Hunter: Our Lessons, What went wrong
Some of the toughest moments we had to deal with as a team was learning to let go, and cut what was broken/not needed. For instance, our initial pitch had a major combat element to it, which we created, but then needed to be cut because it “felt like 2 different games”. We also prototyped and designed 20+ levels with many different mechanics and environmental hazards that ultimately could not make the game. Lastly, we ran into an issue where most of us only own ps4 controllers, so we coded the entire game around them. Then when it came time for testers to play our game, they could not because they didn’t have the specific controllers required.
We have gained a multitude of skills that proved useful during the development process.
Perforce has been one of our most valuable tools that we have used while creating our game. We have had our headaches with it, but as we resolved more issues, perforce became less of a hassle. We can now confidently say we have mastered how to use this tool.
Another skill we improved upon was being able to read other people's code. This made integrating each others code simpler, and script communication smoother as we went forward with the project.
Fabio: What went right
Throughout the development of soul kin our communication helped us when designing our mechanics.
Although soul kin went through many changes and different iterations our four main mechanics stayed. Creation, Telekinesis, Phasing, and Resizing.
After the team became proficient at using Perforce it sped up our ability to work on the project.
Our main goal was to make Soul Kin fun and enjoyable for both players.
Cooperation was one of our core elements that definitely went right, as we witnessed players enjoying working together and trolling each other.
We saw how much people were enjoying the cooperation aspect of our game we made it our focus... and the end result, Soul Kin.
