A 3D platformer without a jump button?!

Hello and welcome to the official development diary for my latest game, Escape from Sunnyside.

This game spawned from the desire to take something sturdy and well defined in the world of game design, spin it on its head, and see if I could pull it off well enough to end up with a game that was not only fun to play, but something that didn't feel like it was different just for the sake of being different.

I think most gamers would agree that certain genres have certain rules and design constraints they conform to, certainly any game design student would, even if it was just to avoid the risk of another slurry of PowerPoint presentations seemingly sponsored by Game Makers Toolkit.

Platformers have arguably one of the most simple and vital design constraints in gaming - jumping. Having a platformer without jumping would be like having a first-person-shooter without shooting, a point-and-click game without a point and click, or a beat-em-'up game without a beat-em-up' button! Okay, okay, that might be a bit far, but put it this way:

In platformer? Player start somewhere. Player need get somewhere. Player jump from where start to where need go.

In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't be taking lessons from Kevin Malone to explain my point but if you ask me, anything that can be explained in such a way and still get the message across accurately, must be simple. What would not be simple however, would be making a platformer without a jump mechanic. So naturally, that's exactly what I set out to do.

That's right, I decided to attempt to create a platformer without the biggest, most fundamental, and most expected mechanic of the entire genre. I knew as soon as I came up with the idea that it would be a challenge, but the panic really started to set in when, after hours of research and reference hunting, I was unable to find a single 3D platformer which didn't have a jump mechanic! Seriously, go look for yourself, and if you find one please let me know. Remember - 3D.

Did you do it? Okay good. Now that we're in agreement (or not!), we can enjoy this development journey together. I hope you find reading these posts enjoyable and maybe even learn something along the way that helps you with your own game dev journey. Make sure to subscribe to all the Good Gravy socials to keep up to date with all that's going on, and be sure to check back here next week to see how the first week of development has gone.

Thanks,

Dan