Presented at the Overkill Festival, The Toad’s Descent: Lost Culture is a 2.5D platformer that places the player in control of a mechanical toad.
As the game designer, my goal was to make simple locomotion rely on the players' constant collaboration. To create organic mechanics, I concepted a jump that required players to ground the leg they control, and then jump at the same time.
I designed the journey across three biomes with increasing complexity. Unlike fast platformers, the levels ask players to observe before acting.
To support the 2.5D horizontal layout, I designed each level as a continuous flow of traversal challenges. Instead of adding floating platforms, I asked the artists to create natural affordances, such as pipes and branches.
Using environmental breadcrumbing to guide the player through the golden path, I placed "Cultural Objects" into the foreground. These served as landmarks navigating players to the closest checkpoint.
The levels gradually increase in complexity, while maintaining a balance by helping players progress with jump-boosters and sliding platforms. Moving becomes easy, but true collaboration is needed to land the perfect jump.
The level design process for each level included a color-coded sketch and a simple to-scale blockout. These allowed for quick iterations, ensuring all necessary elements had the right affordances.
Pipes and branches were placed closer to the camera to act as leading lines, guiding the players toward the next objective.
As the navigation was mainly horizontal, creative visual affordances had to be designed to signal vertical transitions. To improve player guidance, I used the existing TV props to show the intended direction.
To create a feeling of safety, I used the parallax effects to separate the players from the digital swamp. Moving through these natural occluded spaces varied the pacing of the game, as players were asked to rely on their spatial orientation to navigate them.
Because the last biome is set in a dark environment, I used lighting techniques to improve hazard recognition. Since the blue crystals were not perceived as a visual threat, I added red light cues to clearly show dangerous zones.
Nano Woodlands serves as the onboarding phase. By using horizontal layouts and forgiving platforms, I introduced the main mechanics with low punishment.
Elecricap Bogs introduces a skill-based traversal mechanic. Relying on bouncy mushrooms, I concepted a higher jump that rewards players with a speed boost.
Techstone Caverns focuses on player mastery, testing the players' understanding of the existing mechanics. As a result, I adjusted the difficulty curve to build end-game anticipation, creating a breathing space.
At a game festival, the main menu is the first point of interaction for visitors, making its design crucial for grabbing players' attention.
Designing it, I maintained the game's theme consistent by including organic visual elements such as technical leaves icons. For the background, I added a video showing the most visually captivating sections of the levels.
I chose the typography to reflect the game's essence. Featuring a bold, dripping title and clean fonts for text, I created a blend of nature and technology.
The Toad's Descent: Lost Culture is a game that relies on full immersion to tell its story. To avoid using invasive HUDs, I communicated the character's health by changing the experience.
Collaborating with programmers, we implemented chromatic aberration VFX combined with sound distortion. These would increase relative to the time the player spends without recharging at a "grass point".
I designed these effects to complement the narrative, emphasizing that not being in touch with nature leads to insanity.
Being the first project inaugurated at a game festival, the entire team worked together to push the experience outside the flat screen. Through small decorations and dim lights, The Toad's Descent: Lost Culture had its own unique space at the Overkill festival in a treehouse.
Watching different people interact with the game firsthand was a very unique feeling. As a designer, I was excited when they navigated correctly, but also observed frustrating moments, like misaligned platform distances and inconsistent jumping boosts.
Reconsidering the design choices, I would focus on reusing existing areas multiple times by adding more gameplay complexity. Combined with space economy, a less linear approach would give the game more depth and replayability.
Another potential improvement area is player motivation. Due to the story being primarily revealed in the final section of the game and the lack of UI elements, adding collectibles or hidden areas could encourage players to explore further.
