Noktah - A Puzzle Game Android

Hello Indiedb, this is my first time write this article and my first time to jump into game industry.

Anyway this is my first project with my friend, our team just got two people. Me in programming and him in design. Our team don't have an artist. Before I present you our first project, I want to tell you a little story.

Before we come out with this idea, my designer have an amazing idea to make a game. He got plenty concept to make and ideal game that suit with his personality. But we cannot make that game. In this condition, I cannot make what he desire to do. The game that he came up have an enormous feature that I cannot programming it. So we discuss again, and come up with another idea. Platform game.

In this second idea, although I never develop it before, but there is plenty tutorial for platform game and I’m sure that I can make it, so I accept it and we get to the prototype state. We are happy with the result, but there is another hindrance. We don’t have any artist. My friend can draw, but to be able to draw animation object, with precision and beautifully he admit he cannot. So we search for an artist. He found one in our department and invite her. In the start she accept it. But after that she disappear, admit that she want to focus in her study. Well, we cannot force her, so we just give up about her.

We search again for an artist, but this time, we cannot find it. There is a lot people that can draw, but cannot draw in computer, can use corel draw, but cannot draw what my friend desire. So after on month of search we simply give up. After that we discuss about the continuation for this game and we simply halt it, until some magic happen. But my friend cannot simply give up. He came up with another idea, a game where I can make it, simple enough so we don’t need an artist, but still fun. So we came up with this game.

Noktah, a simple 2D puzzle game, with black and white design that can make you a little hopeless playing this game. There is a ball, and the goal is make that ball touch the target. Simple enough. But there is a restriction. You cannot control it. The ball move itself, with constant speed, moving to the right first and if bound, move to the left. The player can only control the jump of the ball. When to jump, and when not to jump. That’s it. That’s all of the core mechanics in this game.

At first, our game is really difficult because my friend is puzzle enthusiast, he assume that other player like him. But we are wrong. When we test our game to another person, the most common comment about this game Is “this is difficult” and “this game boring”. We shocked. We think that if we, the developer, can enjoy the game so do another person. What a naïve person we was.

So we adjust this game a little bit, a more friendly puzzle game, with tutorial how to play it in some level. After that we test again, with the same person. We actually did a great job because the comment “this is difficult” only occur to some people. So we test it another time for a bug, and upload it to the playstore.

So that’s it, that’s our story making this game. I know this game is a little bit boring, let alone fun. But this is our first game, our first milestone. We cannot do better, if we don’t do it. So please give us feedback so we can do better in the future.

Thank you.

Here's the trailer for anyone that interest in this game