Students get their game featured by The Rookies

The Rookies hosts contests to find the best games, connects digital artists with industry professionals, and sets weekly challenges to improve technical skills. Earlier this year, Falmouth University retained its Rookies credentials in the UK and globally.

We caught up with lead game designer Josiah Hendy and art director Ethan Nelson to discuss their work on the project and Petal’s future. Josiah and Ethan answered jointly, apart from where noted.

Tell us more about the project.

There were 11 of us working on Petal across our final year. There were three artists, three programmers, and five designers.

Petal is a game about harmony, and from very early in the design phase, we started planning how puzzle objects and mechanics would interact with each other. Players have to rely on each other and execute solutions to puzzles as a team in order to ascend the seed vault. Working on the level design was a consistently engaging challenge that kept reinventing itself throughout development.

The game won multiple awards at Falmouth University’s annual Games Expo, including ‘Best Third-Year Game’ and the ‘Industry Choice Award’. It also gained runner-up for ‘Best Team Project’ at the Games Bridge festival. You can learn about everyone who worked on the game on our team’s Linktree.

How does it feel to get industry recognition for your work?

It was an incredible feeling for sure. With all of the hard work everyone on the team had poured into the game for the last year, it was really validating and motivating to have the game showcased alongside such amazing company at both the Falmouth Games Expo and The Rookies, and to receive so much positive and constructive feedback from both the public and industry professionals.

What were your inspirations for the game?

Portal 2 was likely the biggest inspiration for the project. We were drawn to its style of co-op puzzle gameplay, where two players with identical abilities are asked to experiment with different systemic objects and to figure out how they work as a team. Our goal was to combine this type of systemic puzzle design with the 2D platformer genre. Games such as Metroid were referenced often for their focus on immersive, interconnected level design and verticality. We were inspired by this kind of world design, as we wanted to make Petal’s seed vault feel like a tangible location that was layered and interesting to navigate.

How did your respective courses help you with the content/build? Who was responsible for what aspect?

Josiah: I was a designer on the team, with a lot of my focus being on the level design, as well as the systems that make up the game. Because design is such a diverse specialism with so many different pathways, my workload always felt quite refreshing  – my tasks week-on-week would typically be quite different, so I always felt very invested in development throughout. Designers are encouraged to be ‘T-shaped’, with specialist knowledge in a certain area but the ability to be flexible and contribute in other ways. I was able to do this on Petal by making contributions to the game beyond my work as a designer – I also created some pixel art assets for the game, as well as composed the music!

Ethan: I was an artist on the team, responsible for establishing our visual style and ensuring we as artists created a visually consistent environment. Additionally, I took on the role of character animator, creating the various animations for the different character states. I fell in love with the process of bringing our characters to life through animation and look forward to developing this newfound passion further! Most of my time during the project was practical, transforming environment and character concepts into pixel-art illustrated assets.

Ethan: I’m also graduating this summer but will be moving on from university and stepping foot into the big wide world! I will continue to work on Petal with the wonderful team we’ve crafted. I have a handful of personal projects that may one day make it past the notebook stage, however, for the time being, Petal deserves all the attention I can give!

External Links

This Way Up’s Linktree

Petal’s Rookie Awards 2024 contest entry