Path to The Peak
Path to the Peak follows the player’s journey to reach the top of a mysterious mountain that has never been fully scaled before. It starts out rather casual or leisurely before the difficulty ramps up the higher you climb. Players need both timing and luck to advance while managing items to prevent or resolve encounters that will cause setbacks.
Overview
Designer: Zach Ritter
Description: A single-player 2D vertical platformer / resource management game
Platform:
Date: 2024
Role: Game Designer
Team members: solo project with family/friends workshopping support
INTENT:
Path to the Peak follows the player’s journey to reach the top of a mysterious mountain that has never been fully scaled before. It starts out rather casual or leisurely before the difficulty ramps up the higher you climb. Players need both timing and luck to advance while managing items to prevent or resolve encounters that will cause setbacks.
POTENTIAL AUDIENCE:
This is a game for people who enjoy platformers, mountain/rock climbing, and adventurous challenges.
CONTEXT:
You are a person tasked with reaching the top of a mountain. On your journey to the top, you may have to navigate past thin handholds, crumbling ledges, falling rocks, pissed-off birds, fallen trees, waterfalls, mountain goats, rain, snow, and lightning strikes, and even random yetis. Along the way, you can pick up and use power-ups such as pitons, a grappling hook, a safety harness, a Helmet, a hand ax, Goat Treats (for the goats!), and a Horn. Are you a talented enough climber to reach the top?
GAMEPLAY:
This is a mountaineering platforming challenge where the player uses their gear and reflexes to progress up the mountain and avoid obstacles and enemies. This game re-envisions a platformer as a resource management puzzle instead of purely being a timing or reflex-based challenge to facilitate more thoughtful gameplay and route planning.
Your goal as the player is to reach the goal flag at the top of each level before the deadline catches up to you. This will require you to plan your route ahead of time, take calculated risks, and avoid the many perils that lurk on the mountain.
In the below example, the mountaineer takes a running start before placing a piton mid-jump to give them the extra boost they need to make the first jump. They dodge some falling rocks as they hop between platforms, careful to see which ones might crumble out from under their feet. In a jump or two, they’ll contend for space on the platform with a mountain goat, and with luck they have some goat treats to pacify it. Further ahead, lightning strikes that cliff at regular intervals, so the player’s resource management must be impeccable to get on and off the ledge in time. And then there’s the yeti, who is none too pleased about this intruder in its territory…
Example Play Space:
Gameplay Sample Scenario:
Starting State:
This is what the player sees as the game begins, just as they’re about to take their first turn. With four initial points of stamina, the player might choose to spring into action, or wait a turn to gather more resources for a greater push up the mountain. But the board never stops moving, and they’d better keep an eye out on that falling boulder obstacle, and need to weigh the costs/benefits of grabbing the grappling hook.
Game State:
A couple of turns in, the player is making swift progress. Having dodged a falling boulder, they have elected to forgo the protection of the safety helmet in order to preserve their momentum. They leap across a gap to the next platform, and end their turn, but it seems a certain ungulate fiend is sizing them up…
Fail State:
With a swift headbutt, the goat sends the player tumbling down the side of the mountain to their doom at the deadline! Seems like that’s another unfortunate soul who never made it to the top.
If only they had some sort of gear or items that could’ve saved them from this fate…
Aha! With the liberal application of some Goat Treats, the climber has pacified their ungulate adversary long enough for them to safely run past and make a final leap!
They’ve made it to the top of the stage!
Postmortem:
Overall, this game could've used some more time in the oven, but it was functional and the mechanics worked as intended. SFX, animation, and music helped sell the game. More content, levels, and mechanics would be fun, but for the semester I worked on it, it was satisfactory.