Fox3D [working title] - A Rayman 2 inspired prototype ( + Demo)

[WatchDaToast]

Hey everyone!

I've been a long time lurker in this community. I was registered here roughly 16 years ago and made a little doom mod called "Rayman Doom", which was never finished though.
Throughout the years, I've started getting into indie game development. Currently I'm working on a "proper" 3D game for the first time and for inspiration, I am of course ripping off my favorite entry in the series, Rayman 2.
I'm still chipping away at the gameplay and rough level layouts for now. Everything else, ranging from the characters, audio to the graphic assets, are all still placeholder. I am still in my early stages of learning Blender and I think it really shows.

My current vision for the gameplay is to be a mix of both Rayman 2 and Rayman 3, as well as a tiny bit of the original Ratchet and Clank.
It's probably going to have around 15 levels, for which I alreay made most of the rough layouts and gameplay assets.


Edit:
I uploaded a tech demo featuring a tutorial level and the first iteration of a forest level, mainly showcasing some combat and basic platforming.
Honestly, I'm really eager to hear what you think of the demo... working on this game for the past year has been kind of lonely and I wonder if this mess of a prototype is even enjoyable to play anymore.

Playable Tech Demo:
https://watchdatoast.itch.io/untitled-fox-prototype-3d



Thanks for taking a look and have fun!

[Hugo]

I'm going to give you my honest views as someone who got into game development recently (excluding prior years of learning programming) and hit a similar place of self-doubt as you.

You're getting this self-doubt for a reason, but that isn't something that undermines all the time you've spent honing your craft. What it's telling you is for you alone to decipher, and I highly recommend doing just that. It may or may not align with my own feedback.

My own feedback is that what you have is Rayman with a different skin (mechanically this will be true even if the assets are placeholders), minus the advantage of having that large team who worked on the original game. Now that you know how to implement these awesome features showcased in your prototype demo, I think you should spend some time making your own designs and freeing yourself a little from the roots of your inspirations. If your goal was to replicate R2 you would've modded it, so I'm sure your goal is to capture what makes it so great. But like myself, you got engrossed in learning blender and various skills; you probably need to take a step back and challenge yourself to design an experience that takes your inspirations *forward*, even if it is clearly a humble solo dev work.

Finally, I think the prototype is visually pleasing and you seem to know your way around blender very well. The beautiful screenshots suggest a love of world building. It makes me want to play the game and this could be your strength and area to focus on. With level design and gameplay it's like, even if you reached the quality of the original, it's hard to make it enticing as it was back then. This is why I think design is extra important when it comes to the interactive experience, and that you need to build on those ideas from your inspirations.

[WatchDaToast]

I'm really appreciating that honesty! And yes, you touched on some important points here that I really enjoy philosophizing about with fellow gamedevs!

In my previous released projects, I actually made good experiences with shamelessly ripping off another game's mechanics - at least during earlier phases of development.
Once I am happy with the core gameplay (which always consists of a lot of copied ideas), there usually comes a point during later iterations where the game naturally starts to develop into its own thing. However, this change of direction was always very hard for me to plan out purely on paper. Usually this kind of development happened during a continued process of iteration on already established levels and gameplay elements, which also often led to me scrapping work I already did. I am always looking for moments where the player engagement could potentially suffer and try to come up with new gameplay elements that would be needed to keep the player engagement up, which often strays away from the original inspiration.
While the earliest three levels (one of them shown in the video) do really stick to the Rayman 2 formula for simplicity's sake and to drive home my love for Rayman 2, there is already a point in level 3 where the game starts introducing more physics-based platforming and puzzles, as well as vehicles and similiar means of (armed) transportation - hence the mention of Ratchet and Clank in my previous post, which comes most close to that. And I am actually really intrigued to see what this project might develop into during the next few months, especially when it comes to collectables and alternate modes of movement.

What I REALLY want to copy is how tremendously good all the R2 gameplay ideas led into this slower, atmospheric and very "intentional" kind of platforming, allowing the levels to "breathe" and really create a kind of immersion I am missing from more temporary platforming games. And I hopefully can keep this kind of pacing throughout the game by using R2 as my gameplay foundation, even if it is just for a 15 level campaign. Or less - who knows.
You correctly recognized my love for worldbuilding by the way - I honestly can't wait to make this game as atmospheric as I can, as soon as the gameplay has evolved in something more fleshed out and presentable!

[Hugo]

Awesome, I share your exact feeling for R2 so I'm really looking forward to seeing more and maybe playtesting if there's an opportunity!

[WatchDaToast]

Awesome, I share your exact feeling for R2 so I'm really looking forward to seeing more and maybe playtesting if there's an opportunity!

I'd love to hear what you think!
I currently have a techdemo prepared that I'll probably release this week.