What is Nuts & Bolty?

Nuts & Bolty is a cartoony pixel-art puzzle 2D platformer in which players control a brave engineer, named “Nuts'', who can move, transport, and place an automatic turret named “Bolty”, that can: shoot at enemies, be used as a springboard, and activate mechanisms with its weight. Players will traverse challenging puzzle levels to solve in a new fashion together with their beloved companion!

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GAMEPLAY TRAILER

Solo Developer process

Followed the entire development process from Ideation to a Vertical Slice.

Ideation Phase:

  • After receiving the brief, I developed some ideas using ideation strategies like SCAMPER.
  • I defined a set of design goals and used those goals to move the development in a solid unified direction.
  • Evaluated the scope of systems to code and art required to succesfully achieve a final Vertical Slice in the available time.
  • Produced various Pitch Documents to pitch the idea to stakeholders.
  • After pitching different ideas I picked the one that resonated most with stakeholders and started the Prototyping Phase.

Prototype Phase:

  • Made all game systems' scripts using C#.
  • Realized a level to incorporate all functionalities to test resulting in a functionality testing rather than gameplay testing.
  • Organized various test rounds with end users to collect feedback to design and develop the game based on players’ feedback as much as possible.
  • Systems bugfixing through tests and player's feedback.
  • Wrote documentation to keep track of feedbacks and bugs.
  • Created main characters sprites using Aseprite.

Vertical Slice:

  • Designed puzzle levels from scratch in Unity to delineate a game progression through gradual mechanics introductions.
  • Each level introduces a mechanic for the player to grasp and understand or increase the complexity of previous levels
  • Created maps and environment using Tilemaps in Unity and finalized enemies and mechanisms sprites.
  • Scripted an AudioManager to manage music and audio in the game with C#.
  • Created menus scripts with C#.

Documentation:

  • Pitch Document - Blockout, Writing and Presentation.
  • Puzzle Design Process.
  • Testing, Bugs and Feedback analyses.

Documents:

For more infos about the process please read the "Puzzle Design process" document

Nuts & Bolty Pitch

Puzzle platformer with a unique mechanic.

Read pitch

Approachable Puzzle Design

In depth process on how to create approachable puzzle design thanks to player feedback.

Read document