Eggsplosion

From April until June 2022 I worked on a unique local multiplayer game where you play as chickens and have to be the last chicken standing. This was done in a multi-disciplinary team of seven, in which I was both a game designer and project lead. Together with two other designers, three artists and one programmer we created Eggsplosion.

Eggsplosion is a twin-stick arena brawler, meaning the preferred input is a controller, and during gameplay you run around collecting power-ups in a set arena. The goal is to remain until the end while surviving all other players. There are environmental dangers and plenty of obstacles to hide behind.

Concept & responsibilities

As a designer during this project I was responsible for the gameplay design, level design and finally UI implementation. Together with my fellow designers we decided upon the following game principles:

Each of the designers built one of the arenas, the first one being my design. This was the only map with an environmental danger, after time the pig sat in the middle would activate a red nuke button. After which there would be multiple rockets dropping down all over the map.

This helped pacing the games and created a lot of chaos under players when they had to focus on more than each other.

Design approach

We went for a fun-first approach through quick iterations and early playtesting. With a wide range of power-ups and solid level design we tried to invoke chaos and make it a game during which you can hear laughing at all times. The results was more than positive, players enjoyed the loop and were curious to see how they could do better next time. Even better, there were many laughs and a lot of fun was had during every playtest.

Comparison of the supermarket designed by me, and the original sketch.

Gameplay design

A big part of the gameplay design for Eggsplosion revolved around the power-ups placed around the map. These generally belonged to a few broader categories that we came up during our design sessions.

Eventually we decided against some of them, and chose others to work out. Meanwhile the developer in the team started implementing a framework for them.

Powerup categories

Result of our first power-up brainstorm session. The idea here was mostly to come up with as much variation as possible, and deciding what is feasible later.

The next stage where we rated and chose our desired power-ups that would be implemented. This was discussed among the three designers and with development times in mind.

A matrix grid to determine what power-up would be allowed to be active with another, and which other that would be.