Gravity Chess - Post Mortem
Now that things have calmed down a little. I thought it's time to give a rundown of my game, Gravity Chess!
Browser Version
It combines chess and a 2D platformer so whilst you see a chess grid and pieces, once you've made a move, the pieces will fall down. You need to get all the piece to the targets.
From the start I wanted to make a puzzle game. I felt that it's makes for an easier route to a full game because once you've implemented the basic mechanics, you can simply make more levels. So I set out to do just that and after the first evening I had a basic game grid, a pawn that you could move around and the gravity mechanics. It looks a little something like this...
Once I'd built this, I created a bunch of levels using the pawn. I was on to something but it needed more. The next step was to add more pieces, so I added the Knight, Bishop and Castle. This opened up some more opportunities but I still needed a few more mechanics.
What finally clicked was making both black and white pieces. The combination of gravity and using that to take other pieces, really made everything come together. Once I'd done that, I just needed to add more puzzles, changes the graphics to make it look more like a platformer and add a level select screen. If I had just a fraction more time I would have loved to add some music but ultimately, as a programmer, that was always going to be a challenge. You can see the final game below.
