Initially, we designers brainstormed mechanics for the premise of our game at the time. The player is stranded on an island and has to rebuild their airship to leave the island, hence the name Return To The Skyway. As designers, we wanted to come up with a central engagement type for players, for this game we were designing, we wanted to focus on engaging the player through exploration and discovery, we then took these engagement types and applied it to the intended designs of our mechanics and levels.
 
To reinforce this engagement type, we also had to decide to focus on the actual genre of the game we wanted to create. As a 2D sidescroller, there was also quite a few options we could go in, platformer, puzzle, metroidvania, etc. But in order to strengthen the feeling of discovery and exploration, we figured that going with the idea of a puzzle game is fitting for our engagement type and narrative theme. To further emphasize the feeling of discovery and exploration, we came up with the idea that the way the player would solve puzzles is by interacting with the flora and fauna of the island, specifically, the player would have to remove obstacles made by the flora of the island with the help of the fauna they encounter.
 
In terms of narrative, we wanted to explore the idea that parts of the natural world of the island is being corrupted and merged with mysterious machinery as proof that the island was previously habited or visited. To reflect that, we designed some of the creatures as mechanical, or half-mechanical, whereas some are fully organic. Furthermore, we had ideas for multiple level we wanted to design, the player would start on the beach as a tutorial area, then transition to a jungle level, which would then transition to an abandoned factory, in there the player would encounter a large half-mechanical creature. We were not sure how to conclude our game in an interesting way, the original idea was that once the player has collected all the scattered ship parts throughout the levels, they would find their ship at the end of the game and that would be the end, implying that the player character repairs their ship and returns to the skies after the player has finished the game. However, we instead chose another approach which would be unexpected to the player and would add more tension towards the end of the game compared to the relatively relaxed feel of the previous levels. We finally decided that the last level would be a chase scene, where the large half-mechanical creature would chase the player through a relatively linear space. We figured the chase scene would be an interesting twist which would enhance the tension we wanted to create with this part, and a good final level to “wow” the player with.
 
There was, of course, some concerns about scope because of this but we did manage to design the chase scene we wanted, however we did have to cut a lot of level ideas and creatures that the player would use as the scope was nonetheless pretty ambitious for what we were expected to accomplish.

Although not everything we wanted made it in the final product, I’m quite proud of what we managed to accomplish as a team. I have learned a great deal about game design and working with a structured and varied team of people over a long period of time. I am also proud to have our game be on Steam for everyone to download and play.