Unity 3D Playmaker - Yogscast Game Jam 2021 Submission

The Game on itch: https://itch.io/jam/yogscast-game-jam-2021/rate/1312564 In this Yogscast Game Jam 2021 Submission "Funky Attraction", developed in collaboration with Mark Porter, we put together an Action Puzzle game. The theme of the game jam was "Opposites". Our idea was that opposites attrac

A walkthrough of the Bliz Studio submission to the Yogscast Jingle Jam 2021, built in Unity with PlayMaker together with Mark Porter. It's a magnet-based puzzle platformer with a movement system built entirely around attraction and repulsion, and it's a good example of getting a full mechanic out of one idea.

The core idea: you are two magnets

You start each level as two magnets that are connected to each other. That's the player character. Rather than controlling a body that walks, you're controlling a linked pair whose relationship to the level geometry is the whole game.

Building a character out of a physical relationship rather than a sprite is what makes the rest of the design fall into place. Every level element becomes a question of whether it attracts or repels you.

Switching polarity with the spacebar

The main input is the spacebar, which switches your polarity. Flipping polarity is how you make a connection to a node in the level, and once you've made that connection you continue your rotation around it.

That's the movement loop: connect, swing, release, connect again. You aren't steering in the usual sense so much as choosing when to attach and when to let go, which means timing rather than aim is the skill being tested.

Bouncing through a level

In practice you continually bounce your way through the level, chaining rotations from one point to the next until you reach the end. Momentum carries between connections, so a badly timed release costs you the next swing.

Collectibles are placed through the levels for you to pick up along the way. Because your path is arcs rather than straight lines, collectible placement doubles as level design, nudging you toward the swing you were supposed to take.

The shift key: passing through nodes

The second input is the shift key, which lets you pass through game nodes instead of connecting to them. This is the release valve for the whole system.

Without it, every node in your path would grab you and the levels would be far too constrained. With it, a dense cluster of nodes becomes a choice about which ones to use and which to ignore, and that choice is where the puzzle lives.

Why this works as a jam game

Game jams reward one clear mechanic executed cleanly, and this is a good example of the shape. There are two inputs. One is spacebar to switch polarity, the other is shift to pass through. Everything else in the game is level design built on top of those.

Building it in PlayMaker meant the physics behavior and state transitions could be assembled visually and tuned quickly, which matters a great deal when you're working to a jam deadline alongside a collaborator. The game is playable on itch, with the link in the video description.