Life of Climb
My first complete game shows the full range of skills required to bring a concept to life and into the public market. This was a solo project and everything is my own work unless otherwise credited.
This is not a typical mobile phone game. Life of Climb has innovative mechanics and original content throughout. Download now or read on for the skills and experience gained.
Click above to see gameplay or find more footage on Youtube:
Game Screens
Concept
Life of Climb is inspired by my love of rock climbing and the desire to share a part of this with the wider world.
The current market for climbing games is limited, with no other game attempting to provide a full range of climbing movement. Although a challenge to code, this USP made Life of Climb a viable project.
Swiping with a touchscreen offered the best solution to control 4 limbs rapidly moving between holds. Other options would be too prescriptive (e.g. press a button to choose a hold).
With the main controls settled it remained how to make these fun. A few mechanics were brought into play including:
-
Hold difficulty ratings, you will fall off if you keep choosing bad holds or do not use your feet.
-
RPG style stats increase your abilities and unlock new actions.
-
Two different characters with different advantages.
-
A timing element if you want to jump to a more distant hold.
-
A variety of hazards such as wildlife, wet holds and rockfall - requiring different solutions.
-
4 different play 'modes' inspired by different types of climbing. These have unique stat increases and power-ups which are also helpful when playing in the other modes.
-
Greater rewards if you complete a level without any falls.
The design evolved as the game progressed and during beta testing.
Whilst Life of Climb is in many respects the most realistic climbing game on the market, the overriding design value throughout was 'fun'.
Art
As per the game design, the art of Life of Climb is a balance between realism and enjoyability.
With consideration to time requirements and the performance of mobile devices I decided to opt for 2D graphics, with a little shading for the illusion of depth.
A pixel-art style was dropped in favour of line-art, to keep elements of gameplay clear.
Filesize and performance were also factors in these decisions, with every level being kept to around 100 to 500kb so that the final game filesize would not put off potential downloads.
A few tricks helped to keep the filesize down such as engine-produced gradients for some areas of backgrounds, and high resolution lines overlaying low resolution pixellated art.
All art was created in GIMP.
There are some screenshots and a video below, all captured in-game.
Programming
Godot was chosen as the game engine for a few reasons, including being lightweight and 2D friendly.
Life of Climb is therefore coded entirely in GDScript, a language based on Python.
The most challenging area of programming was the character movement. Inverse kinematics are calculated each cycle with anything up to 4 points of contact to pivot from, up to 12 joints interacting in between them.
Other coding of interest may include a complicated touchscreen control system, realistic fall dynamics and the interface with Google Play, App Store and Admob.
Sound
The voice and sound effects are essential to the immersive experience of Life of Climb. Some of the effects were sourced from CC0 sound libraries and others recorded from scratch. All voice effects were recorded. I edited most effects in Audacity and kept the filesize low to avoid slowing down gameplay. Additional editing was undertaken at Attic Sounds recording studio.
Sound also has an important functional role, with a heartbeat providing the timing for how far you can jump. The heartbeat becomes more rapid when you are in danger. This required some dynamic tempo and pitch changes and running the heartbeat in time with a delta-controlled variable.
Publishing
Life of Climb was shortlisted for the Pocket Gamer Big Indie Pitch in February 2022.
Life of Climb was then self-published on Google Play and Apple App Store.
Ratings and reviews on Google Play are positive. Average rating hovers around 4 out of 5 stars, with 15 out of 26 ratings giving 5 stars.
Credits
Although a solo project Life of Climb would not have been possible without a little help from my friends:
Voice FX:
Neil Cavendish
Vanessa Garcia
Additional SFX:
Freesound.org - authors available on request
Mixing:
Dave Mountain, Attic Sounds (www.theatticsounds.co.uk)
Menu music:
'The Moment' by SpicMusic10, sourced from Pixabay
Game testers:
Ned Cantrell
Arthur Nyholm-Cantrell
Jim
Tom
Leira
Toby Friend
Christiana Naziris
Matt Beals
Ela Calin (www.elacalin.com)
Main Font:
Rocksalt by Stuart Sandler and David Cohen, Sideshow
Game Engine
Godot v3.3 (https://godotengine.org/)