Borb Country

Overview

Welcome to Borb Country, a platforming video game that incorporates aspects of the "monster collection" subgenre, a la Pokémon.  You play as a small Borb, one of the very few on an island far off at sea.  This Borb needs to collect enough tasty Orbs to feed their family through the winter.  Since these Orbs aren't easy to come by, this Borb will have to enlist help from all kinds of creatures...

Features

• Run, jump and spin around a seamless voxel art environment with cute creatures at every turn.
• Different music and sound effects will play depending on your actions and surroundings.
• Enlist monsters by knocking them out with an attack, then run into them while they're stunned.  Now you can switch between them on the fly and gain their unique attributes!
• Use varied character movements to progress through the stage, make progress your own way, or even break the usual sequence!
• Test your spatial awareness as you try to dig through every nook and cranny of the island, finding more Orbs and other collectables along the way.
• Move the 3D camera around to get a better view of things.  You can snap it back to its original direction, and it will not go through geometry.

Gameplay & Controls

Once you arrive on this island, you must explore all possible paths to find Orbs high and low.  Swerve past obstacles and collect juicy apples to aid you on your journey.  See a creature? Try stunning it with an attack so you can add it to your party.  Some creatures take more effort than others, however.  Get as many Orbs as you can, because you'll need to at least reach double digits to get to the end!

You can also collect Orbs by collecting lots and lots of Apples.  Red ones fill 1 percent, while green ones fill 10 percent! Healing pools are also quite handy; they restore your health.

Here's a primer on the 10 playable characters in Borb Country:

Borb is a great all-around pick, as it has a projectile, melee attack, and decent mobility.  However, you only get one!

Cricutie makes up for its lacking speed with its great jump height.

Isolid is a tad heavy, but can go at great speeds!

Chickenbiggen is a boss character! It shoots fireballs, but isn't very agile.

Radsnail is generally useless.  Nice shades, though.

Bunsoclock can slow down foes around it and fire bread.

Cowbee can hover in the air for quite a while and fires shreriff's stars.

Ballxolotl can dash in mid-air, and cancel with a jump.

Octofriend can fire a lot of explosive stuff at once, but it can only take one hit!

Coolsun is the final boss and final transformation! If you can conquer it, you'll gain great agility and hovering prowess.  It's great for getting those last few Orbs!

WASD - Move

Space - Jump

IJKL - Move camera

UH - Zoom in and out

E - Primary attack

Q - Secondary attack

ESC - Pause menu

FG - Switch between characters

67 - Unfriend (free a slot from your party)

Challenges

• Loading and unloading certain areas or objects when needed
• Creating a controllable camera
• Switching between characters at will
• Keeping track of their variables
• Making the game less resource-intensive
• Promoting exploration and taking one's time
• Balancing all of the characters
• Choosing which sequence breaking strategies lended depth, and which made the challenges trivial
• Offering subtle hints through level design

Future Plans and Improvements

While I am unsure of whether to continue developing this game, there are many aspects I could continue working on in the future:

• Creating an intelligent and reliable camera system
• Creating even more unique monster playstyles
• Making a much larger region with even more routes from one area to the next
• Saving even more resources with more sophisticated dynamic loading
• Polishing the visuals and presentation
• Various bug fixes