Poes Koud

Poes Koud was inspired by the original survival game missile command, but embraced the idea of mobile controls and the physics involved. For comedic effect I wanted to lean into the idea of that even though South Africa has 11 official languages and a lot of its population speaks multiple languages, it doesn't mean that you're fluent in every language and more often than not leads to some hilarious misinterpretations.

The "size" of the snowballs is randomly created, as is the "angle" at which they fall, as well as their "starting point" above offscreen. These 3 qualities are randomly chosen in the object spawner script, and the longer the player survives the process repeats quicker and quicker, providing a survival element to the gameplay (reaching max difficulty at the 60 second mark).

I wanted to create a game that uses the mobile phone's accelerometer, and the best way I thought that could showcase the mobile control was to have the player put on ice and give the control a sense of the character sliding out of the way of falling snowballs as they tilt their phone in the direction they want the cat to go. I could have made the cat controlled by a joystick or by pressing buttons, but I think it's limiting to keep trying to make mobile games handle like console games. Consoles handle button controls much better because that's what they were created to use as player inputs. By using the accelerometer, Poes Koud handles like a mobile game meant for the mobile platform.

I embraced player physics through this control system. The cat is weighted and the texture of the floor is slippery (giving the floor a frozen feel). From there it is a velocity equation. The steeper you tilt your phone to one side the faster the cat slides from one side to the other, and then of course with that the more effort you have to put in to move the cat it the opposite direction. So small movements are the key to controlling where you want the cat to go at a seconds notice (I suppose in that sense it applies to the losing momentum diversifier). However, it is become easier said than done. 

I was also aware of the role sound design plays in the game. After seeing so many users angry at games like Flappy Bird, where you're expected to play the same level repeatedly, I thought it might be a helpful tool to have a soothing backing track. The backing track was a downloaded piece of music I paid the usage license for.

Art is not my specialty, so I decided to lean into a style I could learn fairly quickly, that being pixel art. Giving the cat big eyes makes it look cute.  (all pixel artwork and logo work was created by me for the game jam, everything else comes from Unity's free 2D sprite asset pack). This is the kind of game you give to your younger family members when they ask if they have games on your phone and tell them to see how long they can survive for.