Design Pillars
Two Players Must Hold an Object
Accessible controls and clear objectives/obstacles would make the game very easy to pick up.
Must Carry Object to Objective
The game should have the player in constant movement, forcing them to make quick decisions on the fly.
Capturing the Feeling of Moving Furniture
Knowing this was one of our core rules, we needed it to be the main focus of our design; and we thought of two engaging ways of utilizing it. Working for a furniture moving company, players work with their partner to deliver items faster then their rivals.
The controls needed to feel natural, meaning things that looked heavy needed to feel heavy to the player. I developed a script that allowed us to edit a specific attribute for a piece of furniture within Unity's editor. If an object was given a weight of 5 and another given a weight of 2, the first object would have an increase in drag and gravity effects, making it more difficult to move than the second object.
This made it very difficult for one player to move something large like a couch or a fridge. This worked for well for Mover Madness because it guided players to work together as they carry it to the objective, reinforcing our core rules.
We were able to dedicate our simplified control scheme to half of a controller which allowed us to map one team to a single controller. This makes use of our core rule yet again. Players literally hold a single object as they play.
Final Result
Mover Madness was selected by a panel of judges. Many of whom are established within the industry!
