We’ve been able to make some more progress on the slime trail and decided to go for a more gooey look. We’ve also added a way to restart the level by pressing the “R” key on the keyboard. Here’s a video demonstrating both.
Slime Trails! (+ Restart)
We also looked into preloading the lab scene during the title screen since it takes a while to get to it after both players press “z”. We were able to get the scene to preload, and were able to save a whopping…80 milliseconds! Now it only takes us 5.6 seconds to load instead of 6.4 seconds. đ
In the last stretch of the course, we’ve been rearranging some level assets based on playtester feedback to make gameplay smoother. We’ve also been working on a “slime trail” effect, for players to leave behind as they traverse the level. This has proven to be more difficult than we anticipated, but here is our work so far:
These are the notes we took during our Ubisoft playtesting session:
Make snap more apparent (need to show elasticity somehow)
Huge latency issues on the Wii Nunchucks – at level up there’s lots of interference
Have to have a backup controller
Maybe small individual jump and rewarding higher one?
Characters are cute, sticking visual is clear
Visual gets “burned” by checkpoint light
Don’t use light for checkpoint
Add a more obvious checkpoint visual instead
Let them knock over sink equipment for fun
Get rid of harsh checkpoint placement on top of machine
Make goo look more dangerous – bubbling?
Put an Easter egg behind the maze (we forgot to block it)
Multiple ways to go is fun, consider allowing the maze bypass
Swinging was cool
Try to allow for single-player to expand audience
Concept has to be understandable within 5 minutes, this works well
Use more UI prompts, they didn’t notice some of the plain text
Maybe arrows to show where to go(?)
Fix lighting (too bright), darken areas that aren’t playable
Colours everywhere are too bright, seems like every item has purpose
Maze feels more like good tutorial for movement
Good level reference: About A Blob lab level
Panelists assumed we were going to texture the level
Changes Implemented
Overall Improvements:
Some general tweaks to the UI triggers (e.g. broadening or narrowing areas that trigger text popups) as well as camera bugs (e.g. clipping through items)
The camera now switches to an overhead view whenever it detects something blocking its view of the players
We continuously tweaked momentum controls for a better feel, since our alpha feedback was that âit feels worse than it looksâ – by our beta presentation, panelists said that it âfelt funâ, so we think the change was successful!
Added arrows above the player charactersâ heads to indicate their joystick motion, and fixed the rotation of the arrows to correspond to camera position
This was added before playtesting began, but playtesters helped us notice bugs and improve the visuals
Changes implemented between Session 1 and 2:
Implemented spiking animation between playtesting sessions 1 and 2 based on players being unsure when they were sticking and what they could stick to
Players in session 2 responded well to this animation
More jumping platforms in the sink area of the level, to use our mechanics instead of just walking through it
A sticky wall to teach players about the sticking mechanic first without penalizing them if they fall
Prevented players from hitting the corner of the countertop when they attempt to swing across the gap between tables
Attempted to add deceleration so that movement is more responsive
Added enemies and a door-opening button to the maze, so that the area has more purpose
Changes implemented between Session 2 and beta:
Applied a uniform colour for sticky surfaces, but since there is still some confusion we will be updating to a âslimyâ looking texture on all stickable objects.
Based on Ubisoftâs feedback, we added a colourful texture to checkpoints, and a particle system with âcheckpoint triggered!â text above it when activated:
This also addresses the fact that not all playtesters understood it was a checkpoint (over 50% did in both sessions, but itâs an important enough concept that we wanted to really emphasize it)
As per Ubisoftâs recommendation, we added a funny Easter egg for players who skip the maze
Ongoing Improvements:
We are currently looking into adding more fun visual feedback – several panelists as well as student playtesters have suggested adding a âslime trailâ behind the players. We are also planning on implementing our âslimyâ texture on stickable objects by making a custom shader in Unity.
Since we experienced latency issues with Nunchucks at Ubisoft, we’ve ordered a USB adapter that should help us avoid any further problems.
Finally, our latest feedback from our beta presentation is that we are over-engineering our level design, and that we should focus more on our playful toy-like mechanics instead of trying to design puzzles or rigid goals. This is something we are trying to include in the last phase of our game.
We added a question asking what game(s) participants have enjoyed in the past to gauge their genre and difficulty preferences, since the FLC group doesn’t necessarily play games regularly.
Based on the previous session, we modified a few aspects of the level:
Sticking animations on players
More jumping platforms in the sink area of the level, to use our mechanics instead of just walking through it
A sticky wall to teach players about the sticking mechanic first without penalizing them if they fall
Prevented players from hitting the corner of the countertop when they attempt to swing across the gap between tables
Attempted to add deceleration so that movement is more responsive
Added enemies and a door-opening button to the maze, so that the area has more purpose
This resolved some of the previous issues, but raised a few new ones – as can be seen in our responses and notes.
Finally, we also screen-recorded each playthrough with players’ verbal consent. We compiled them into a Youtube playlist, so that we can compare the actual playthrough to our notes. This should also allow us to get a rough sense of how long players spend in each area, and whether this is an issue for our level design.
The core concept of CellMates is that two players share one amorphous cell body. The two players must each control a nucleus and cooperate to move, jump, and stick to the environment in order to survive and escape. Inspirations include Chibi Robo and I am Bread for the player scale relative to the environment. The cell bodyâs blobby shape and fluid movement is similar to Mercury, and we aspire to create joy/ease of movement via momentum similar to Loco Roco.
Roles
Lead/Manager: Ana
Level Design: Felix
Environment Design: Guillaume
Character Design & Animation: Adriana
Music & Sound Effects: Nick
Programmers: Yuantao, Frank, Jesse, Ana
Programmer Sub-Roles:
Jumping/Sticking: Jesse
UI/Level Implementation (Includes Lighting + Camera, importing Blender assets): Frank
Cell membrane: Ana
Movement/Momentum, Enemies: Yuantao
Gameplay Description
CellMates is a co-op puzzle platformer. The players are bound to each other by the cell body and must cooperate to complete the level. Each nucleus moves around inside of the membrane, when the nucleus pushes up against the side of the membrane, it drags the cell in that direction. If the players move in opposite directions, the membrane will stretch to its limit before stopping the players. This limits the playersâ range to a certain radius of each other, forcing them to synchronize the direction of their movement. When players move together, they will gain momentum faster than when they are out of step with each other.
When the membrane is stretched, it will change colour to indicate the tension. If the players press the jump button simultaneously while the membrane is stretched, they will be pulled towards each other and the cell will jump up in the air. There will be a small timing tolerance (~0.5 seconds) for movements to be considered âsimultaneousâ. While in the air, the players can continue to move, allowing them to strafe onto platforms.
Jumping mechanic illustration
The last mechanic is sticking. There will be special objects and surfaces that a player can stick themselves to, indicated consistently by the colour and texture of those objects. When one player holds down the stick button near a stickable surface, their part of the cell will become stuck to that surface, while their partner continues to move along the wall. Surfaces that can be stuck to will allow the player to scale walls. This is achieved by turn-taking in which one player sticks, providing a tether point for the other partner to jump up from and scale the surface.
Smaller, lighter objects (~0.5 mass in Unity) can also be pushed or dragged around by sticking to them. A player that is sticking cannot move, so they would rely on their partner to drag both them and the object.
Sticking mechanic illustration
Proof of Concept
These videos can also be seen in our previous update posts. The jumping and climbing mechanic work with Unity cloth physics, and we will continue to iterate on them.
Levels and Level Progression
All levels of the game are located in one environment – a single room in a lab.
Each level of the game takes place in a separate area of the lab (for example, a table) that the players must navigate. There will be checkpoints throughout the level. If the players quit the game and want to continue at a later time they can load from these checkpoints. If they reach some loss state (such as getting hit by too many enemies or falling into some hazardous obstacle), they will also respawn at the latest checkpoint. Checkpoints will take on the appearance of Petri dishes to fit in with the lab theme. In order to differentiate the levels, players will be able to enter certain architecture on the map, e.g. cabinets and sinks â this will help to maintain visual interest.
Initially, we intended for the cell to grow in size to indicate level progression. However, due to time constraints and the limitations on asset reusability that this concept would introduce, we have decided to keep the cell approximately golf ball-sized relative to the environment throughout.
At the start of the game, the players learn the basics of moving around and jumping, while avoiding enemies (cockroaches, seen below). After completing the early level, the players will gain access to the sticking mechanic and must use it to go up walls and climb across gaps. They can also move objects around to use as platforms or to complete puzzles, while avoiding cockroaches with wall climbing capabilities. Finally, players will have to combine all the mechanics from the previous parts to escape the lab room itself.
Current cockroach enemy design + previous brainstormed designs
Gameplay Flowchart
Below are some level concepts exploring the mechanics:
We have incorporated some of these ideas into our first level/game area. The first image shows players’ perspective, and the second image is the overview of the level (with the players starting on the left-most counter and progressing towards the right). The third image shows a rough top-down layout of the lab room, which players will traverse in a S-shaped curve by completing levels.
Sound Design & Music
The general tone for the music and audio is heavily inspired by early 2000s video game soundtracks, specifically puzzle and platforming games. The music in games like I-Ninja for the Playstation 2 and Archer Macleanâs Mercury for the Playstation is mostly synth-based with electronic influences. What is interesting about platforming games around the 2000s is that many of them combined electronic synth music with cartoony and animated visuals. The goal is to express those themes within CellMates’ music and sound effects as well.
The game will be created in Unity 3D. The blob shape of the cell membrane will primarily be achieved using Unityâs built-in cloth rendering, which is being used in our proof of concept videos. In constrained settings, we may be able to leverage the Nvidia FleX plugin for Unity. We have already experimented with this plugin and found it difficult to manage, since it is still in beta and has no documentation. However, given very limited settings (e.g. a tube that the players are temporarily in), it can save time to create fluid-looking movements and avoid the appearance of Unity cloth clipping through objects that have box or plane colliders.
We will need to create a save system that uses checkpoints. Being able to place many checkpoints and quickly reload them is important for avoiding player frustration.
For the controls we are using a Wii nunchuck. The nunchuck is perfect since has as many controls as we require, so we can player avoid confusion by not having any unused buttons. The analog stick will be used to move around. Both players pressing the jump button while the slime is stretched will trigger a jump. If a player presses the stick button, the player’s nucleus will stick to nearby objects.
Illustration of nunchuck control mapping
Artistic Style Outline & Asset Breakdown
The shape of the blob is largely dependent on Unity cloth rendering, so it will not be manually animated. However, each of the player nuclei will be detailed and animated. Their expressions will change to reflect the actions of the player, (ex. surprised/concerned faces when hurt, blinking when idle, etc).
Enemies will be simple bacteria, cockroaches, and rats, to match each of the sizes that the blob will take on throughout the game. As the character changes in size, the assets will scale accordingly. We will create a variety of simple office supplies and lab equipment to use as platforms and obstacles in the game levels. Most of the assets that are created will be created in low poly, to allow a higher number of assets to be created without as much work for our artists. We plan to use Blender to create the assets and import them into Unity.
There will be an image pop-up for the tutorial portions of the game, showing the appropriate button above each player. The buttons will be colour-coded to match the players, as seen in the video below:
The UI shows the C button when a player can stick, as well as arrows indicating where each player’s joystick is pointing.
The overall tone of the our art is planned to be very cartoony and brightly-coloured to match the blob. The blob is supposed to be very young and we want the players to get the feeling of growing and learning about navigating the world with them. The initial Petri dish will contain very basic assets to reflect the simplicity of the start of the game. Once the players leave the dish and enter the lab, we will have more complicated although still low poly assets for the objects and environment at that level. The lab will contain a variety of environments and test containers that the blob will enter, so the tone of different containers will differ.
Our cartoony player characters!
Asset Breakdown – Major Areas
Sound Assets (major areas):
Synth-based background level music
Synth-based menu music
Synth-based credit music
Slimy/jello-y movement sound
Stretch sound
Jump sound
Landing sounds
Short voice lines for the two nuclei (emotes)
Art assets:
Player characters – animations for a few different facial expression states
Enemies
Bug enemy will be prioritized, since it works at every scale
Other enemies: bacteria, lab animals (rats)
Animations will be kept simple for the sake of delivery time
Worlds:
The entire world is a lab. The world contains sub levels that the player can traverse through (cabinets, pipes, floors, etc) that complement the setting and feel to the narrative.
Visual Effects
Membrane colour change to indicate stretch (green to yellow)
Membrane opacity fade to indicate damage being taken
World Concept Art
This image shows the relative scale of the player to the environment (i.e. the marble-sized phase):
The feedback we received indicated that the image was too plain/stark for the cartoony look of the characters, so we are going to try adding colour to fix this. Below is an example of a colour scheme we want to use
Brighter colours will make the lab more visually interesting
Finally, here is an image illustrating what an area that the players can enter looks like. When they drop inside, they gain access to a small level:
Tutorial level (this is complete so it will not be broken down into tasks here)
A first version theme song, preliminary sound effects (stretching sound)
Week 7-8 (Feb 16 – Feb 27)
One complete level that uses all the mechanics
OCAD: Finalized level design by Feb 17
Focus on using hazards and all 3 mechanics in one level
U of T CS: Implement level Feb 17-27
Implement prefabs of reusable level parts
OCAD: create level assets Feb 17-27
Create reusable assets
OCAD: Start animating character faces
Idle animation – characters blink
U of T Music:
Level Music
Character Noises (giggling when jumping, idle noises)
Membrane Stretch based on separation
U of T CS: Separate code into relevant files + rename Unity Project
End of Week 8 (March 1-3)
Add pause screen with restart option
Player death + checkpoints working
Start screen
U of T CS: creating the initial scene in Unity and transitioning to actual game
U of T Music: start screen music, menu button noises (start noise)
OCAD: title screen appearance (game logo/graphic design of start page)
Week 9 (Playtesting begins)
Beginning of this week: Add tutorial areas to level (one for stick, one for stick + jump)
This can be a small area incorporated into the existing level, where players get a text popup above their heads explaining the action
Organize playtesting
Record feedback
Implement change (will need to create new tasks)
Generate one more level design
The timeline after Week 9 will largely depend on feedback
Week 10 (Ubisoft)
Incorporate Ubisoft feedback
Generate one more level design
Implement previous weekâs design
Week 11 (Beta)
All feedback addressed
Implement previous weekâs level design
5 levels (including tutorials, which we need 2-3 of)
Additional Ideas and Possibilities
We had a few more ideas we were considering. Firstly, we were thinking that the sticking mechanic could be used for more than just as a means for moving the player membrane. Another possible use for the mechanic could be for one player to stick onto an object, and the other player drags the body away to move an object. This could be used for puzzles to activate switches, or for position floating platforms to jump on. We touched on this earlier in the document but the idea has not been finalized.
Another idea we had was to make wall climbing up long walls more satisfying, since part of the feedback we received from Gameloft was to create a sense of reward for difficult tasks . If, when at max tension, both players shake the nunchucks in small circles while in sticking range of a stickable wall, they will use that âenergyâ to start an automatic wall scaling sequence. They will scale it fast, and there will be loud satisfying thumps for each stick to make the movement satisfying. This would be a power up they would get later in the game to make wall climbing less tedious. This would only apply to taller objects (10x player height or more)
If players have difficulty with the controls during playtesting, we may also use the Wii remote instead of just the nunchuck if additional buttons are required.
We asked two friends who hadn’t tried our game yet to do a quick runthrough of our alpha so far. Here is the video for now, which we will try to annotate with observed player reactions soon:
After a quick work meeting today, here’s an update on how our cell membrane works.
We tried to make the stretchy feeling more obvious to the player.
Other development tasks we’re working on include adding spring physics between the players to help pull them together, as well as give a sense of elasticity while wall climbing. We’re also cleaning up our code into separate files where possible.
We hope to have our alpha level design complete within the next day, and an asset breakdown for that level ASAP (we’ll decide the details of this in a meeting soon).
The core concept of CellMates is that two players share one amorphous cell body. The two players must each control a nucleus and cooperate to move, jump, and stick to the environment in order to survive and escape. Inspirations include Chibi Robo and I am Bread for the player scale relative to the environment. The cell bodyâs blobby shape and fluid movement is similar to Mercury, and we aspire to create joy/ease of movement via momentum similar to Loco Roco.
Roles
Lead/Manager: Ana
Level Design: Felix
Environment Design: Guillaume
Character Design & Animation: Adriana
Music & Sound Effects: Nick
Programmers: Yuantao, Frank, Jesse, Ana
Programmer Sub-Roles:
Jumping/Sticking: Jesse
UI/Level Implementation (Includes Lighting + Camera, importing Blender assets): Frank
Cell membrane: Ana
Movement/Momentum, Enemies: Yuantao
Gameplay Description
CellMates is a co-op puzzle platformer. The players are bound to each other by the cell body and must cooperate to complete the level. Each nucleus moves around inside of the membrane, when the nucleus pushes up against the side of the membrane, it drags the cell in that direction. If the players move in opposite directions, the membrane will stretch to its limit before stopping the players. This limits the playersâ range to a certain radius of each other, forcing them to synchronize the direction of their movement. When players move together, they will gain momentum faster than when they are out of step with each other.
When the membrane is stretched, it will change colour to indicate the tension. If the players press the jump button simultaneously while the membrane is stretched, they will be pulled towards each other and the cell will jump up in the air. There will be a small timing tolerance (~0.5 seconds) for movements to be considered âsimultaneousâ. While in the air, the players can continue to move, allowing them to strafe onto platforms.
Jumping mechanic illustration
The last mechanic is sticking. There will be special objects and surfaces that a player can stick themselves to, indicated consistently by the colour and texture of those objects. When one player holds down the stick button near a stickable surface, their part of the cell will become stuck to that surface, while their partner continues to move along the wall. Surfaces that can be stuck to will allow the player to scale walls. This is achieved by taking turns sticking and allowing the other player to jump up. Smaller, lighter objects (~0.5 mass in Unity) can also be pushed or dragged around by sticking to them. A player that is sticking cannot move, so they would rely on their partner to drag both them and the object. There will be motifs used to indicate special surfaces and objects to distinguish them from the rest of the environment.
Sticking mechanic illustration
Proof of Concept
These videos can also be seen in our previous update posts. The jumping and climbing mechanic work with Unity cloth physics, and we will continue to iterate on them.
Levels and Level Progression
All levels of the game are located in one environment – a single room in a lab.
Each level of the game takes place in one area of a lab table that the players must navigate. There will be checkpoints throughout the level. If the players quit the game and want to continue at a later time they can load from these checkpoints. If they reach some loss state (such as getting hit by too many enemies or falling into some hazardous obstacle), they will also respawn at the latest checkpoint. In order to differentiate the levels, players will be able to enter certain architecture on the map, e.g. cabinets and sinks – this will help to maintain visual interest
At the start of the game, the players appear in a Petri dish. At this microscopic stage, they will learn the basics of moving around and jumping, while avoiding enemies (in this case harmful bacteria which will slow down the players). After completing the Petri dish levels, the players will grow in size, to about the size of a marble, breaking out of the dish and starting to navigate the lab cabinets. During this stage, they gain access to the sticking mechanic and must use sticking to go up walls and climb across gaps. They can also move objects around to use as platforms or to complete puzzles, while avoiding new scaled up enemy models (bugs, such as cockroaches) which would behave the same as the bacteria. Finally, once the players find a large source of food, they will grow to the size of a tennis ball. At this stage the enemies will be lab rats. At this point, they have to combine the mechanics from the previous parts to escape the lab room itself.
Flowchart of player progress through each level
Below are some level concepts exploring the mechanics:
Sound Design & Music
The general tone for the music and audio is heavily inspired by early 2000s video game soundtracks, specifically puzzle and platforming games. The music in games like I-Ninja for the Playstation 2 and Archer Macleanâs Mercury for the Playstation is mostly synth-based with electronic influences. What is interesting about platforming games around the 2000s is that many of them combined electronic synth music with cartoony and animated visuals. The goal is to express those themes within CellMates’ music and sound effects as well.
The game will be created in Unity 3D. The blob shape of the cell membrane will primarily be achieved using Unityâs built-in cloth rendering, which is being used in our proof of concept videos. In constrained settings, we may be able to leverage the Nvidia FleX plugin for Unity. We have already experimented with this plugin and found it difficult to manage, since it is still in beta and has no documentation. However, given very limited settings (e.g. a tube that the players are temporarily in), it can save time to create fluid-looking movements and avoid the appearance of Unity cloth clipping through objects that have box or plane colliders.
We will need to create a save system that uses checkpoints. Being able to place many checkpoints and quickly reload them is important for avoiding player frustration.
For the controls we are using a Wii nunchuck. The nunchuck is perfect since has as many controls as we require, so we can player avoid confusion by not having any unused buttons. The analog stick will be used to move around. Both players pressing the jump button while the slime is stretched will trigger a jump. If a player presses the stick button, the player’s nucleus will stick to nearby objects.
Illustration of nunchuck control mapping
Artistic Style Outline & Asset Breakdown
The shape of the blob is largely dependent on Unity cloth rendering, so it will not be manually animated. However, each of the player nuclei will be detailed and animated. Their expressions will change to reflect the actions of the player, (ex. surprised/concerned faces when hurt, blinking when idle, etc).
Enemies will be simple bacteria, cockroaches, and rats, to match each of the sizes that the blob will take on throughout the game. As the character changes in size, the assets will scale accordingly. We will create a variety of simple office supplies and lab equipment to use as platforms and obstacles in the game levels. Most of the assets that are created will be created in low poly, to allow a higher number of assets to be created without as much work for our artists. We plan to use Blender to create the assets and import them into Unity.
There will be text pop-up for the tutorial portions of the game. We envision them to be white text on some neutral background, so they are always visible.
The overall tone of the our art is planned to be very cartoony and brightly-coloured to match the blob. The blob is supposed to be very young and we want the players to get the feeling of growing and learning about navigating the world with them. The initial Petri dish will contain very basic assets to reflect the simplicity of the start of the game. Once the players leave the dish and enter the lab, we will have more complicated although still low poly assets for the objects and environment at that level. The lab will contain a variety of environments and test containers that the blob will enter, so the tone of different containers will differ.
Our cartoony player characters!
Asset Breakdown – Major Areas
Sound Assets (major areas):
Synth-based background level music
Synth-based menu music
Synth-based credit music
Slimy/jello-y movement sound
Stretch sound
Jump sound
Landing sounds
Short voice lines for the two nuclei (emotes)
Art assets:
Player characters – animations for a few different facial expression states
Enemies
Bug enemy will be prioritized, since it works at every scale
Other enemies: bacteria, lab animals (rats)
Animations will be kept simple for the sake of delivery time
Worlds:
The entire world is a lab. The world contains sub levels that the player can traverse through (cabinets, pipes, floors, etc) that complement the setting and feel to the narrative.
Visual Effects
Membrane colour change to indicate stretch (green to yellow)
Membrane opacity fade to indicate damage being taken
World Concept Art
This image shows the relative scale of the player to the environment (i.e. the marble-sized phase):
The feedback we received indicated that the image was too plain/stark for the cartoony look of the characters, so we are going to try adding colour to fix this. Below is an example of a colour scheme we want to use
Brighter colours will make the lab more visually interesting
Finally, here is an image illustrating what an area that the players can enter looks like. When they drop inside, they gain access to a small level:
Tutorial level (this is complete so it will not be broken down into tasks here)
A first version theme song, preliminary sound effects (stretching sound)
Week 7-8 (Feb 16 – Feb 27)
One complete level that uses all the mechanics
OCAD: Finalized level design by Feb 17
Focus on using hazards and all 3 mechanics in one level
U of T CS: Implement level Feb 17-27
Implement prefabs of reusable level parts
OCAD: create level assets Feb 17-27
Create reusable assets
OCAD: Start animating character faces
Idle animation – characters blink
U of T Music:
Level Music
Character Noises (giggling when jumping, idle noises)
Membrane Stretch based on separation
U of T CS: Separate code into relevant files + rename Unity Project
End of Week 8 (March 1-3)
Add pause screen with restart option
Player death + checkpoints working
Start screen
U of T CS: creating the initial scene in Unity and transitioning to actual game
U of T Music: start screen music, menu button noises (start noise)
OCAD: title screen appearance (game logo/graphic design of start page)
Week 9 (Playtesting begins)
Beginning of this week: Add tutorial areas to level (one for stick, one for stick + jump)
This can be a small area incorporated into the existing level, where players get a text popup above their heads explaining the action
Organize playtesting
Record feedback
Implement change (will need to create new tasks)
Generate one more level design
The timeline after Week 9 will largely depend on feedback
Week 10 (Ubisoft)
Incorporate Ubisoft feedback
Generate one more level design
Implement previous weekâs design
Week 11 (Beta)
All feedback addressed
Implement previous weekâs level design
5 levels (including tutorials, which we need 2-3 of)
Additional Ideas and Possibilities
We had a few more ideas we were considering. Firstly, we were thinking that the sticking mechanic could be used for more than just as a means for moving the player membrane. Another possible use for the mechanic could be for one player to stick onto an object, and the other player drags the body away to move an object. This could be used for puzzles to activate switches, or for position floating platforms to jump on. We touched on this earlier in the document but the idea has not been finalized.
Another idea we had was to make wall climbing up long walls more satisfying, since part of the feedback we received from Gameloft was to create a sense of reward for difficult tasks . If, when at max tension, both players shake the nunchucks in small circles while in sticking range of a stickable wall, they will use that âenergyâ to start an automatic wall scaling sequence. They will scale it fast, and there will be loud satisfying thumps for each stick to make the movement satisfying. This would be a power up they would get later in the game to make wall climbing less tedious. This would only apply to taller objects (10x player height or more)
If players have difficulty with the controls during playtesting, we may also use the Wii remote instead of just the nunchuck if additional buttons are required.
CellMates Blog 