Are you ready for an adventure? When a mischievous Owl swipes Spire’s treasured Lichen Staff and scatters his belongings, it’s up to you to track them down! In this Single-Player Puzzle Platformer, you’ll play as Spire, tossing acorns to navigate through the treetops, swiping your tail to move objects and solve puzzles, and recovering all your lost trinkets in A Squirrely Story!
About the development
The beginnings
The prototyping phase started with one thing in mind: we’d like to make a platformer. After experimenting with both a fast and a slow-paced platformer, we settled on slow.
The mechanic of the character throwing some object that becomes a platform and sticks to walls provided a fun player experience. Maybe they could be a magician who throws cards?
The idea of an animal being the protagonist was pitched and eventually the choice fell on a squirrel. We ended up ditching the magician idea and instead thought it would be fun if the squirrel main character threw acorns that became platforms.
With these decisions, pieces of the narrative started to fall in place organically: the game could be based in a forest, allowing the player to explore. Maybe we could divide it into multiple vertical layers? What if we made the game a collection where the player has to collect trinkets?
Adding key mechanics
With the game having an environment open to explore, we focused on mechanics that were simple, yet portable. Elements that could be used in different ways all over the level, and even integrated into puzzles.
Tail swipe
Of course, the primary mechanic is the platform creation and that is what we focused on the most. However, we wanted add something else for more diversity, this time focusing more on puzzles.
The choice fell on a tail swipe mechanic, allowing the player to move or interact with smaller objects: move a rock to a pressure plate to open doors, or to rotate a capstan to raise gates.
Environment art
Visuals were a strong focus during the development process. The goal was to make the game have a cozy and relaxed vibe. Something you would play on a rainy Saturday morning.
Credit: Marc Chartier
Credit: Cullen O’Hern
Leaf color changer
Initially, the environment was static and this was not something that was planned at all. It went from a completely random idea during one of the meetings to one of the key pillars of the game environment.
We experimented with the environment having both fully green and fall-colored leaves, and liked both of them, but chose fall colors. But what if we could have both? What if the game started with green leaves and they progressively transitioned to fall colors as the player picked up more trinkets?
It made the environment dynamic and also gave the player a sense of progress. Plus, it allowed me to get in some shader and tech art work that I was longing for.
Narrative
The opening cutscene sets the premise for the collectathon nature of the game: that the Owl scattered Spire’s trinkets all over the forest that he now has to reclaim with the help of the player.
Credit: Hanna Bacha
In-game narrative elements are designed to complement the main story, as well as to make the game more fun.
Credits: Lindsey Bellaire | Zachary Norton
Credit: Andrew Zitnik