CRYPTORS

A series of retro web games


produced by Florent de Carolis, Louis de Carolis, Guillaume Mazurage
graphics by JPtom
music by Damien Bonnel​​​​​​​
level design by Pierre Hale
QA: Louis Bard

2023

What I did:
Game Design, Programming, 2D Graphics, Sound Design



I was commissioned to make these games by Cryptor Studio, as a way to expand their universe and provide entertainment to their growing player base.
A total of three games have been made over the course of 2023!

1. THE REBOOT


A minimalist city-builder in which randomness plays a substantial role, making it a sort of roguelike: some runs are better than others, and the player is driven to retry many times.

While it might forgo a small margin of hardcore players, I found this to be appropriate for an arcade format. Every game starts off very easy and predictable but quickly gets difficult and random, which creates superior variation for most players losing after a single short game.

The media license the game is a part of includes 4 rival factions, which must be kept in balance by the city's leadership.
I chose to signify this implicitly through ludonarration by making equilibrium a central rule.
2. REPOPULATION
A difficult endless coordination game. Designed for short, satisfying streaks of perfect gameplay, and very frustrating consequences for error.

The game features procedural level design and music, which adapts to the player's performance in order to provoke a flow state.
This game symbolizes the societal consequences of a "baby boom" : frenetic industrialisation!
3. ENERGY QUEST
A 2D sidescrolling platformer with nine levels and an endless mode. This final and most sizeable game tells the story of RV-423, a maintenance robot who defies authority.

As RV progresses through the game, he unlocks several abilites that go from least to most courageous, which illustrates RV's inner growth : at first he crouches and dodges, and later becomes able to break walls and fly away.