Squirrel Squabble is a 2D FFA brawler with 2-4 players, with the Wii fit balance board. On our first year of education at Uppsala University we were meant to create a game with somewhat unconventional controls. First we came up with the idea for the game. The idea was mainly inspired from mobile games where the player moves the character by tilting the screen. In our game we could have squirrels jumping up the branches of a tree. Whenever the player wants to jump higher up, the player has to squat down on the balance board as to prepare for a jump and then stand up again (jumping can also be done by leaning backwards and then forward). There are two ways to win the game; either you collect a certain amount of acorns or you be the last squirrel remaining.
I was the lead designer for the game but we often discussed the design elements together with the group. I also did a little bit of art for this project like the customisation for the different squirrels, the beehives and a few sprites etc.
There were a few elements that we discussed whether they should be or not be in the game. One of them was whether the game should have PvP elements in it or simply focus on the surviving since the unconventional input was already challenging enough .Another one was the fact that should the players choose where to jump when they were preparing for the jump or lean towards the desired direction when jumping. In the end, the game turned out to be fairly difficult to the ones playing for the first time. As for the ones who had played it a lot, enjoyed the difficulty of it. Anyways, there were two or three things I would want to change afterwards about the game but overall we were happy with it and everyone seemed to have fun playing it!