Welcome to my new game Forklift Fever, an arcade-inspired 3D platformer!!

This is the first game I've made that tracks something globally. Thanks to the power of Unity Leaderboards, it tracks your score! The score I've set is the amount I got by beating the game while trying to get the minimum possible score. Maybe when your scores improve, I'll set a real record.

But of course, a leaderboard would be impossible without point values to add to your score! The ways you get points were inspired by the risk-reward design of my favorite game, Spelunky, and by the design of the Barnacles in the Half-Life games. The Barnacles have many fail-states that make it difficult for them to kill you but lead to some epic moments where it feels like you defied death (even though there were still plenty more fail-states until you died). I wanted to add this to enemies for the sole reason of "epic moments". I was adding this to the builders in stealth mechanics (wake up builder → builder starts chasing you and can kill you) when I started having trouble coming up with more complex ways for you to die. Naturally, I opened Spelunky for inspiration, a game infamous for the number of ways it can kill the player. (Stacked push blocks in Spelunky inspired the falling rubble: break support → structure starts falling on you and will kill you)

Suddenly, I realized Spelunky was also a score-chasing game. It uses risk-reward mechanics for scores that are meant to make you greedy and take risks. This fit neatly into my fail-state machines as a reward for starting them but not going too far. (eg. wake up builder → get score when you knock over building with builder → builder starts chasing you and can kill you, break support → reach new area → structure starts falling on you and will kill you) This revelation led to explosives. (step on structure → get score when it explodes → structure starts ticking and will kill you)

The Spelunky games have ghosts that appear if you spend too long in a level that can kill you but secretly can give extra points. I wanted to add this risk-reward system because it felt similar to one of my previous games, Gas Rush, also about getting gas cans quickly. However, I realized that I wanted new players to play slowly and skilled ones to move quickly instead of waiting on the ghost, so I flipped the system on its head by adding an evil Roomba that disappears after a certain amount of time but can be crushed by the forklift for points. (beat level quickly → crush Roomba for points in forklift → Roomba chases you and can kill you) (The harder it is to express a mechanic in these sequences, the more distinct it is.)

Originally I thought the ways you get points in the forklift might seem vague, so I added point values to a blackboard on the scores screen inspired by Yoshi's Island. A friend told me to add unimportant side things, so I let players clear and draw on the blackboard. After this, I heard a commentary node in Half-Life 2's new developer commentary that mentioned never taking control away from the player, and I redesigned the Forklift sections so that you could move your camera. This gave me the idea to put unique hints for every level behind you in the forklift when you turn around.

This game is my first attempt at stealth mechanics. When a builder hears you jump, they will start chasing you. They will remember you whenever you return to that level in a run, so it's not like you can just wake them, then quickly jump off the building and knock it over for points. It's an investment in your skills. Here, the stealth mechanics may seem like a practical joke designed to trick new players into getting a lower score. In the third level, it's actually a challenge to wake up two builders for points. But this is only half the game. There is another challenge. One that promotes slow and thoughtful stealth gameplay, as waking up a builder once would make the rest of the run much harder.  Beating the final level is a challenge that will reward you with a new menu option. But this game is supposed to loop forever! When does it end?

Lucky number 33