Crystal Caverns

Students at FIEA participate in projects called Rapid-Prototypes, short 2 week themed games made on teams that fill in the time between regular classes. Crystal Caverns was in the category for just making a game for fun, so it let the team really experiment with game mechanics. 

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Our main mechanic in Crystal Caverns was that our protagonist, Rocki, could fire physic lines to surfaces and use them as grappling hooks to swing around a level. While the creation of that mechanic was a ordeal and a half, we eventually nailed their implementation - which opened up a door to level designing possibilities. 

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Grapple hooks are fun, and momentum is fun. Using the hook to swing from crystals and fling boulders at walls was a cathartic experience, and creating levels to fully embrace that catharsis was fun and engaging. Verticality is always a challenge to design for, but with iteration attempt after iteration attempt, a fun level were you swung from the ceiling and avoided lava was born.