inspiration can come from anywhere!

I would like to share the sources of inspiration for Polar Peril, my latest Game Boy game. 

Since the project began life as an entry for a game jam, I wanted to make an approachable game which could be played by the maximum number of people. Often there is this desire to break out of norms and buck against game standards and try to make a radically new game like never before. But as cool as that sounds, in practice you are fighting an uphill battle, especially in a game jam where your entry is subject to judgment from the jam organizers as well as other game devs. 

That being the case, I decided to make a game genre I really love. An Adventure/Puzzle hybrid game. Maybe it is for marketing reasons or just a general lack of interest but I feel this is a generally underappreciated genre. Especially considering the flexibility of themes that you could create for the genre. Let’s take a look at the games I played for inspiration during the development of Polar Peril. 

Gameplay Inspo:

Mole Mania

Perhaps you can already see a nod of respect I made in naming my game with the title of this one. By naming the game so alliteratively I was hoping to wear my inspiration on my sleeve. Mole Mania is a game so generous in puzzles & adventures you’d be hard pressed to find a game that is more “Game Boy ” than this 1996 gem. The game might have had to go underground in the looming shadow of Pokémon’s release but let me tell you, this game is worth digging up for a play-through. Mole Mania has you play as a mole who can dig underground to traverse and evade dangers in each stage. If you got to play Polar Peril, that mechanic might already sound like it has a cousin in the game by way of traversing underwater. 

Adventures of Lolo

Man… Lolo is a cult classic in puzzly adventure games. Lolo is no frills, all fun. A masterpiece in box pushing games. Honestly there is a lot to unpack in how this game could inspire a game dev but ultimately the main mechanical inspiration I pulled from this game is how Lolo can throw a limited number of eggs in a stage and I applied that to the snowball mechanic in Polar Peril. Being readily available on the Nintendo Switch Classics series, if you haven’t played Adventures of Lolo, it’s time

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