"A breakneck game about irritable ghosts wreaking havoc on haunted hotels, paranormal guests, and each other. Join a party of poltergeists as they rampage through underworld-renowned resorts from which they can never escape. Monster mash with up to four players and have the time of your afterlife!"
Ectoplaza was my first commercially released title. As Designer & Team Lead for Ectoplaza, I endeavored to create an accessible family title that could achieve the following:
Be a competitively viable Multiplayer Action-Platformer that requires only one hand to play.
To reach this goal, a character controller was created whose attack was inherently tied to their movement. Players would charge their character by holding the attack button; the more they charged, the more powerful their attack would be. The player would then aim with a single directional stick and release the attack button, resulting in their character flinging across the stage with the distance of their fling determined by their charge time. Think Smash Bros. meets Angry Birds. If the player chose to tap the attack button rather than hold, they would initiate a quick dodge with a short cooldown. These core design elements, in addition to player "ultimate moves", allowed Ectoplaza to achieve a dedicated following and strong showings at Dare To Be Digital festival, IndieCade festival, and Tokyo Game Show.
Ectoplaza released on the Nintendo Wii U eShop in October 2016 to favorable reviews, with Nintendo Life reporting: "Ectoplaza does a great job of offering a competitive and easy to pick up multiplayer experience, and it's one that no social Wii U owners will want to miss out on."
