Petal

♪♫ Petal is available to play here: https://this-way-up.itch.io/ ♪♫

Hello! We're This Way Up, a team of eleven who recently wrapped up our third year of study at Falmouth University, and are looking to continue working together as an indie studio of our own. Petal was our project over the course of our third year, and we're thrilled to be bringing it to the Rookies!

Petal is a two-player game about a pair of young plant creatures exploring a mysterious facility together, and discovering the new life that calls it home. When developing the game, our primary goal was for every facet of the experience to convey a strong sense of harmony. We wanted players to grow closer through collaboration with one another, as well as with the environment that they explore.

The setting of the game revolves around a dichotomy between organic and mechanical elements, plants and machines. In order to progress through the game, players are asked to assess the relationship between these two forms of life, and uncover for themselves the ways in which they work together.

"Hey, those vines have grown on that elevator! Maybe you can hang on the vines while the lift carries you up?"

On top of discovering this blossoming bond between plants and machines, players must also develop their relationship with each other to explore. In Petal, exploration is a two-plant task; players have to rely on each other and execute solutions to puzzles as a team in order to ascend the seed vault.

"If you throw me up to that ledge, I can open that door for you!"

Many of the puzzles in Petal are built on a matrix of systemic physics interactions between different objects. Oftentimes these puzzles have multiple solutions, encouraging players to toy around and experiment, and characterising the seed vault as a place where everything works together in surprising and harmonious fashion.

One other way we aimed to bring about harmony was through Petal's music. We developed an adaptive audio system (or AAS) that ties certain musical layers to certain on-screen actions. For example, if the players are pushing a heavy crate, booming percussion will enter the soundscape to sell the weight of the object. This means that, at any given moment of gameplay, the music of Petal is entirely unique to the current actions of the players - they are literally harmonising through the game! 

If you'd like to read more about the making of Petal, including design documents and concept art, feel free to take a look at our Production Book, available to read online here!

Thank you so much for reading! We're all very proud of our work on Petal thus far, and are looking to continue work on the project beyond university. The Rookies is a great opportunity for us that we're happy to be a part of, so we sincerely hope you like what you see! The version of the game we completed during our time at Falmouth University is available at the top of this page via itch.io - so what are you waiting for? Grab a friend and get harmonising!

- This Way Up ♪