A laptop, with the game Super Safe Spelunking Open. The 'room cleared' screen can be seen.

Super Safe Spelunking - Game Design & Marketing

Super safe spelunking is a 2.5D SHMUP featuring rogue-lite elements and procedurally generated levels.

Super safe spelunking is an isometric SHMUP featuring rogue-lite elements and procedurally generated levels. Dive through striking biomes, swap weapons at the base camp and take on the wild shots of long-forgotten employees turned enemies. The only thing ‘safe’ about this adventure is the fun. We developed this project with the partnership and mentorship of MAXART. Super Safe Spelunking plunges players into a series of increasingly perilous cave systems, each boasting distinct & visually striking biomes. Beginning at the Base Camp, the player can prepare for descent & select levels by navigating through thematic cavern entrances. Each level contains multiple modes, adding strategic depth and replayability for the challenge-seeking audience. Succeeding in these modes rewards players with powerful new weapons on subsequent runs.

Blending a 3D environment with cartoonesque 2D characters & enemies creates an engaging & unique visual experience. Players will traverse abandoned mine shafts, lava-filled chambers, & many more biomes that offer distinct hazards & new enemies. The core gameplay loop revolves around utilising the available weapons to survive obstacles & enemies, defeat formidable bosses, & acquire & manage upgrade modules. Play time can be kept short to cater to casual players, or levels can be replayed in different modes consecutively to provide further challenge to more invested individuals.

The game innovates on the SHMUP genre, as required by the brief, with its distinct aesthetics & characters, & a wide variety of creative weapons that the player must unlock, upgrade, & experiment with. We achieve online connectivity with a ‘weekly run’ that contains a predetermined map, goal, & challenges that players can complete, to be reflected on a leaderboard, based on their top times. Players permanently enhance their abilities as they progress, tackling the escalating difficulty & eliminating threats along the way.

My Role in the Project

In Super Safe Spelunking, my primary roles were Sound Designer and UX Designer and QA. I also assisted in the marketing team by managing the development team LinkedIn account, and often wrote or rewrote public writing, such as the Steam page descriptions, and social media biographies.

Game Design

While I was not primarily a game designer for this project, I still contributed to the design, through quality assurance and user experience. As a part of my responsibilities, I suggested improvements to the game, based on feedback gathered during the week. These suggestions ranged from solutions to observed issues, to quality of life improvements.

For example, in the base camp, the player spawned next to the campfire. There was a small area underneath the campfire that contained statistic upgrades, and weapon selection, however, players were consistently missing this area, and immediately progressing to level selection. This behaviour was reinforced by a decal of footsteps that led from the campfire to the first level.

To guide players in a different direction, I suggested the decal be shifted to lead downwards, to direct them to weapon selection first, as the entrances to level selection could be seen when the player initially spawned in, and players had less issues finding it.

During gameplay, players would often have difficulty knowing about and finding remaining enemies, before progressing to the next room. This led to pauses in gameplay, significantly interrupting flow.

I suggested two elements to implement: indicator arrows to the remaining enemies off-screen, as well as a progress bar that would inform the player approximately how close they are to completing the room.

Marketing and Writing

As mentioned above, I handled the team LinkedIn page. As this is a business oriented platform, The posts had to be more professional, and team related, unlike the Instagram page. Examples of posts can be found below.