Bloom Collective
An endless-runner type game for mobile
An endless-runner type game in which you strive to survive as a Collective of jellyfish.
In this game, the player leads a trail of jellyfish (known as a "bloom") with a variety of alternating colors in the dark depths of the ocean. The jellyfish grow and erode over time - making it difficult for players to pass from generation to generation and continue to survive as a collective.
This game's environment is ever-changing, with a dynamic color palette that responds to the light emitted by the jellyfish. These are some of the elements that affect the course of the game and maintain a different swim each time you play Bloom Collective.
Here is Bloom Collective's teaser video:
My Role
A mobile game that I developed as part of my final project at Bezalel Academy. The project focused on creating a complete game for mobile.
This project started with an in-depth study of the mechanics in the relevant genre. The continuation of the work regarded the creation of concept art and an interactive and dynamic world that changes in each session of the player. I coded and assembled the basic mechanics and structure of the game by myself in C # computer language inside Unity game engine, when later in the project a programmer joined my work in order to handle the complexity of this dynamic world. I managed the entire project solely, functioning in all the roles including production, game design, creating and examining the various stages, animation, sound and music composition, etc.
Innovations in mechanics
Bloom's game mechanics seeks to bring a new and refreshing game technique to the endless-running genre.
Innovation is done through two main intertwined actions: rewarding and multiplicity of characters.
Burnout
From the moment it detaches from the polyp, the jellyfish begins to mature.
The longer you survive the game, the more it will grow and respond more slowly.
Multiple Characters
The focus is not on one main character but on a multiplicity of characters called a collective.
Rewarding
Control over a number of jellyfish becomes difficult as the band expands, but there are rewards accordingly:
A. More light
B. Continuation of the dynasty
C. Points multiplier
Dynamic Design
Bloom is based on an infinite, generative, and dynamic array. Each game session will look slightly different and will never be the same - through a complete system consisting of alternating elements.
Lighting
Each jellyfish emits its own light with which illuminates its environment.
The light emitted by the jellyfish in the band is used for sight, each with its own color and pattern.
Ingredients
The modular content of the game world consists of elements that absorb the jellyfish lighting and are displayed accordingly.
Cold tones symbolize the world of the jellyfish; Warm shades signal danger to the continuity of the collective.
Everchanging Session
Bloom is not a game of progress within a sequence of pre-determined stages, but is based on a dynamic and infinite array.
Swimming will start each time from a different place.
Modular World
The game world is made up of dozens of different arrays cataloged according to difficulty levels and different objectives.
Each session maintains a chain of arrays created according to progress.
This is a simple example of how the dynamic session algorithem works:
Progression
In addition to acquiring a skill in swimming itself (referred to as a Flow game), Bloom contains additional screens where players' progress can be monitored.
Stats
In the Stats screen under the main menu, you can follow the game data over time: beating high scores, planktons eaten, jellyfish collected, the most successful collective and more.
Collective
Under the Collective menu, you can find dozens of tags showing the jellyfish collected, sorted by color and format.
Core Mechanic Prototyping
Played many (all) the games in the genre of endless running and then wrote its mechanics in C# (in unity), fuse interesting mechanics together, and created a new mechanic and concept that works best together.
Here are some of the early tests I've made in unity:
Simulating playing on multiple screens at once
Creating multiple characters during session
Feedbacks
Launching the game to the App Store was a very exciting experience for me. This allowed me to give the people around me (and even those I did not know) the opportunity to play Bloom Collective on their smartphones. Watching people compete with their friends for the highest score, alongside people who played the game and wandered off to a kind of state of meditation, created a great sense of satisfaction for me.
In addition, the project soon received a very high ranking in Apple's game charts.
Playing around with the camera
Testing the burnout mechanism
The presentation of the project at Bezalel was a great success and received great feedback. Bloom Collective was chosen to be at the top of the list of selected final projects for 2019 by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation.
Later on, the project was featured at gaming and animation festivals.
