aaron vanderbeek

Happy Happy Doom Fall is a simple point-and-click gravity game inspired by Tumbledrop. Using the Wild Pockets platform we decided to create a 3-D adaptation of the game. Each level has the cat sit atop a tower, and your goal is to simply get the cat to land on the platform below. Remove blocks by clicking on them, and let gravity handle the rest!

Happy Happy Doom Fall was created in 24 hours for the WildPockets Game Jam held at the Entertainment Technology Center in Pittsburgh, PA on October 18-19, 2009. It was created using the WildPockets game engine. The game was awarded the 3rd place design prize by a panel of local developers.

Given the short length of this game jam and the known instability of the beta version of the WildPockets game engine we set out to created something extremely simple that took advantage of the available physics engine. Having recently played a great little game called Tumbledrop, I pitched the idea of a 3D version of the game using WildPockets and we went from there.

We used a playful color scheme and a slight narrative of keeping a rotund kitty out of the water to add lightness and humor to our game. We made three levels for the game and had them loop continuously, allowing a person with a short attention span to play indefinitely! The inprecise method of placing blocks and unpredictability of the physics engine made for a unique experience each time a level was loaded. We made it so levels automatically loaded any time the cat fell in the water or when the player advanced to the next level because of the short play experience of a level. This made the play experience more fluid from one level to the next and often created instances of building and releasing tension as a series of humorous failures strung together in quick succession would puncuate with a teetering victory that would lead right into the next level to go through it all again!

The severe time constraints precluded us from adding the sound in the game, but the sound design was complete nonetheless. The sound design revolved mostly around the use of soothing tones that would create emergent harmonies when the game was played. Sound was to be used as feedback for clicking on a block, for blocks colliding with each other, for blocks hitting the grass/water, and for the kitty hitting blocks/grass/water.

Game Designer: Presented the idea of our game to teammates, participated in brainstorm discussion, commented on art style, sketched out level ideas.

Sound Designer: Created and edited sound effects.