Team Donkey Pitch: Banana Surfing

Banana Surfing by Team Donkey Games

Project Summary:
Banana surfing is an action game in which players will slide down a long grocery aisle, using banana peels to propel their avatar forward while avoiding obstacles scattered throughout the isle. Basically, hitting bananas speeds you up, while colliding into obstacles slows you down. Avoiding collisions with bananas powers up your “banana bar” which serves both as a score multiplier and when the bar is full, can be depleted for a momentary period of invincibility were no obstacles can slow you down.

The goal is to reach the end of the isle successfully, with their score being determined by their speed throughout the course. Completing levels with a certain score allows the player to unlock additional levels that will be of increasing difficulty and challenge. The game will have a comedic theme and metaphor with exaggerated cartoon actions throughout the game.

Game Design Idea:
The goal of the player is to slide his/her way out of a supermarket aisle. The super market layouts (aka levels) are long aisles of varying length where various items are scattered among the aisles. These items include more banana peels (which keep you sliding and speed you up slightly), and obstacles such as can displays, shoppers, and food packing boxes which will all slow you down. The player will have to learn to navigate the supermarket to maximize his/her speed by colliding into the banana peels while avoiding these obstacles by jumping and dodging.

The game also features a “banana bar” which fills up as the player avoids obstacles, and is subtracted when the player collides into an obstacle. The banana bar gives a larger score multiplier the more filled it is. When the bar is completely filled, the player may choose to completely drain the banana bar to 0 to gain a temporary state of invincibility in which obstacle collisions do not cause him/her to slow down.

“Fun” and “aha moments”:
The “fun” and “aha moments” of our game will be when the player enjoys sliding down the aisle at high speed. Throughout this experience there will be an emphasis on fast, forward movement. A sense of freedom should also be prevalent as the slowing effect of the obstacles is reduced at higher speeds giving a sense of reckless chaos and advancement.

Also, when the player can activate the invincibility state, he/she can revel in the fact that they can truly cause as much chaos as they can while they continue to move just as fast as they used to without any consequences.

Team Members:
The team members of Team Donkey are David Chi, Anshul Bhatnagar, and John Nakano. David Chi will be responsible for project management, Game IO, core game mechanics, and art assets. Anshul Bhatnagar will responsible for implementing game rules and score systems, as well as game GUI elements. John Nakano will responsible for polish effects and also core game mechanics. We look forward to working together to make Banana Surfing a reality.

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