Cozzle - Devlog | GameJam Devlog

The theme for 2022 was Duality. I decided to go with Unity this time. On the first day, I was exploring ideas and my initial idea was to create a puzzle platformer with 2 characters where both characters help each other to reach to next level. Unfortunately, I was running out of interesting ideas. So, I decided to put them nicely in to recycle bin.

My next idea was to create a 2d top-down puzzle. I created 2 characters and gave them basic colors. I started to add Player Script as well as PlayerController Script. My idea was to control one character at a time and the control will propagate to another character but in the opposite direction. In the actual script, I would simply switch out the rigid body to control and to control and gave the other opposite velocity of the same control. I was testing and modifying some data to best fit and feel good for the game. Being satisfied with the control, It was time to add some levels to play. In Unity, it was very easy to create levels using tilemaps. I added TileMap Object and TileMap Layer. And stopped by a moment to open up MSPaint and create a simple tile to test out the tilemaps.

I laid out tiles to create a boundary and added a collider to work as an actual boundary. It was working fine. And I got an idea to make a puzzle where both characters need to reach the same point with the double- control. So, I begin testing the mechanics of the game, to get used to the controls and find some interesting scenarios for puzzle levels. With some testing, I found a way to move one character and not another using some obstacles. This became an important concept for the game.

After working a few hours on the game, I added some graphics. and I was able to create up to 5 levels for the game. And I was still play-testing the game to find some edge cases. It was already 11:30 PM, so I stopped for the day. I saved all the changes and went to bed.

On Day 2, I was focusing on fixing bugs and polishing the game. With some simple script and added sprite, I added an indicator to indicate which character is being controlled. Although it was a small feature, it added a lot of value to the player. And then, I decided to add some animation to the game. I did all the animation using DOTween. I added some simple scale tween for character spawn animation. After being done with the animation, I moved to Lighting the scene. As this was a 2D game, I upgraded to use the Universal render pipeline for 2D Lighting. Upgrading turned all sprites black, as there will be no 2D Light in the scene. I added Global 2D Light and messed a bit with settings. And finally, I added some particle systems for the final point to be more like a teleport chamber. I played with settings and made a simple particle system for teleport.

At the last minute, I decided to add the final scene for the game. I just copied and pasted the first level and added texts there. After being done with the final scene. I build the game and submitted it to itch.io 20 minutes before the deadline.

You can play the game from https://dioveath.itch.io/cozzle