Overview:
Polyphemus is a Cave-Crawling inspired survival horror game where the player moves by physically crawling with their mouse. I originally made a small prototype in 48 hours for a game jam, winning a prize for Best Mechanics. Since winning the prize, the game has been in active development.
Achievements:
Developed a diegetic movement game mechanic to simulate crawling with mouse inputs in a 3D environment, gathering over 330 wishlists on Steam.
Created a prototype over the course of a weekend, earning a prize for Best Mechanics in the Virginia Tech Game Development Club Game Jam and over 160 players on itch.io.
Hosted playtests for over 40 playtesters, gathering qualitative feedback data, analyzing through affinity diagrams, and implementing changes based on that data.
Conducted a disability consulting session playtest with 6 consultants to locate improvements to be made for the game’s accessibility.
Design Process
Player Locomotion & Iteration
Because my inspiration (caving) is a very physical activity that requires you to move your body in unconventional ways, I felt creating a diegetic game mechanic, where the player's bodied movements matched what the character was doing, was integral.
There were several iterations of the crawling mechanic until it felt right. The first iteration saw the player using each mouse button to control the left and right arms respectively, while picking up their mouse, and clicking and dragging it back to move.
This was clunky and unintuitive to players, so I redesigned a system where the player uses the left mouse button to grab and crawl, and the right mouse button to turn. In this version, mice with a higher DPI had an advantage of moving way faster. During the jam, I addressed this by capping the move speed. It's more fun to frantically crawl using your mouse, but the game punished you for this due to the speed cap.
In the modern version, the player calibrates their mouse area to the character's arm positions. This solved both the DPI and frantic crawling issue at once.
Inventory
I used a grid-based inventory system in the game, where the player has a limited amount of slots to store items. I intentionally kept the number of slots small in order to push the cramped feeling of the spaces the game's inspiration is known for.
The Cyclops
The main antagonist of the game is Polyphemus, a giant cylops that roams around the map and hunts the player. Because of his large size, he cant fit into the tight tunnels of the map. The players are forced into the claustrophobic, unnerving spaces as they find shelter from the cyclops.
The players have a way to navigate in the wide spaces where he resides as well, though. By moving slowly, the player makes less noise, and Polyphemus is unable to detect them. This creates tense experiences where the player is holding their breath as they slowly, but frantically drag themselves across these spaces.