Spider Fall is a hyper-casual mobile game where players take the role of a cute spider falling down a drain pipe.
As the spider, players use physics-based swinging mechanics to avoid obstacles and collect Golden Gnats. To move around, the player shoots webs at walls or other debris to swing in broad arcs, changing direction quickly while managing momentum. The spider bounces elastically off walls and surfaces, and webs act as firm springs with a little bit of give.
Touching spikes kill the spider, with hazard indicators showing when they are off-screen and approaching.
The game's stand-out feature is the swinging physics, where players must accurately time when they release from their web to avoid hitting spikes and travel in the correct direction.
Inspiration: The main inspirations for Spider Fall were Doodle Jump and Spider-Man games. Bringing in the cute character and hypercasual genre from Doodle Jump and the web swinging from Spider-Man.
Core Mechanic: The primary mechanic is the game’s physics. More specifically, slingshotting yourself and being able to wrap around platforms to avoid hazards. The game is focused on being simple, cute, and easy to pick up.
Iterations: There were two iterations before publishing the prototype. The main changes were swapping to a more sophisticated physics package called Obi Rope for better rope physics and the spider’s design.
Publishing: The second iteration of the game was published on Voodoo's platform. Although it did not pass its testing phase, the team continued to refine the game internally.
Development Challenges: The biggest challenge was creating the rope physics that allowed the character to wrap around obstacles smoothly and naturally. To overcome the challenge, the team used an asset package called Obi Rope.
Art Challenges: The team aimed to make the spider character as cute as possible while still keeping a spider’s typical characteristics. Unfortunately, due to scaling issues, the spider had long legs and a small face, making it look freakier.
Also, the team thinks they may have overdone the texture since many hyper-casual games use basic colors instead. They tried to work around this challenge by implementing a cell shading style and adding pleasing colors and outlines. However, the game still ended up being a bit too scary.
The dev team recorded several videos and reviewed them to decide on the most compelling segments of gameplay to include in the videos. The videos were intended to showcase both skilled and unskilled gameplay to inspire viewers to believe they could play better.
Analysis of KPIs: Since this was the team’s first attempt at creating a hyper-casual game, they expected low performance. They had also anticipated some challenges and setbacks due to their inexperience in the genre. For these reasons, it was unsurprising that the cost per install, retention, and playtime was lower than the average successful hyper-casual game.
Key Takeaways from the Prototype:
The team learned that having multiple mechanics focusing on one main idea is better than focusing on a single mechanic.
The team also learned that the video needed to be more engaging as the ones they produced were not holding their viewer’s attention.
They learned that the game was too complicated. Hyper-casuals are about the gameplay, and Spider Fall’s gameplay did not feel good.
They realized the game could have been more bouncy and had more effects that supported the gameplay.
Spider Fall did not feel like a concise and straightforward hyper-casual game. Instead, it felt like a small prototype for a more in-depth game.
The development process for Spider Fall was focused on creating a simple yet engaging game with a cute character and unique physics mechanics.
The dev team overcame design and technical challenges by utilizing a sophisticated physics package and iterating on the artwork. Despite not hitting their desired metrics, the team is very proud of what they achieved.
Bencin Studios gained valuable experience and insights that will inform our future endeavors in the hyper-casual genre. We are excited to continue exploring hyper-casual gaming possibilities and create enjoyable and challenging games for players.
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