Hello Frog Sqwad!
Today, we’re going to chat about how difficulty will ramp up over the course of your games in Frog Sqwad. Introducing: The Depths System. We use the depths system to clearly show you the rising difficulty, increased stakes and escalating tension. Each depth will introduce new environment hazards, enemy behaviours and gameplay challenges.
To do this, we have four 5 main design tools that we play with to raise the stakes:
Visual and Thematic changes
Room difficulty modifications
Enemy evolutions and new variants
Spawn room progression
Audio hype tracks
We wanted to take you through each one, giving a deep dive into how they work and what we set out to achieve.
Visual & Thematic Escalation
We want players to feel the progression as they descend. As we leaned into this idea, it allowed us to experiment with the environment. As you get deeper, the environment literally “heats up” the closer you get to the core. Each sewer depth takes this into consideration and is designed to evolve with that goal.
Backflush Spillway: Open, airy sewer environments with minimal hazards
Noxious Tunnels: Contaminated areas filled with hazardous slime
The Underpipes: Intense, high-risk environments dominated by lava and destruction.
Room Difficulty Modifications
In Frog Sqwad, we have almost 100 sewer rooms already built. We found out early on that creating entirely new sets for each of the depths just wasn’t going to be practical. Instead, we took from each of the rooms and sprinkled new threats on top of them. You can see this most notably with the water in the levels. Adding Lava and Slime to them increased the opportunity for mistakes and intense moments.
Toxic Slime:
Damages the player
Doesn’t destroy objects
Introduces risk without a huge punishment
Lava
Damages the player
Destroys any object it touches
Significantly increases tension and consequence
Enemy Evolution & New Variants
When you are exploring the depths of the sewer you will be introduced to new or modified enemies. Not only are the stakes higher, but it adds a little more pressure to your runs through the sewer. You will need to overachieve in your food quota to be up to the challenge of what waits for you in the depths of the sewers!
Mutated frog variant that spits acid. Adds ranged pressure and area denial, but can also be used to smash wooden barriers
Upgraded to spit lava. Can be used to destroy rocky environment elements too.
Has an AOE attack. Can be used for height boosts at your inconvenience.
Larger, faster and more dangerous variant. Acts as a high-threat enemy!
Spawn Room Progression
In Frog Sqwad, when you first enter a sewer, we wanted to make sure you knew you were encountering the different levels right as you spawned in. This meant we had to have a spawn room that echoed that progression.
This adds not only a sense of achievement but also a light logistical challenge for things like preparing the boat.
Audio & Atmosphere
In Frog Sqwad, music plays a crucial role in amplifying the tension. We will be doing a developer insight post soon around the music, so stay tuned for that!
At a top level, we wanted to create a rounded experience with the music. The music allows us to offer a distinct “lock in” moment when you enter that final day. No more messing around! In, solve puzzles, get food and get out. A real moment that screams everything has been leading up to this moment!
And that’s it! A very in-depth deep dive into our sewer system and how it works, why we did what we did and what you have to look forward to when you jump into Frog Sqwad! We can’t wait for you to get more hands on it and hope you enjoy the sewers as much as we enjoyed making them!
Until then, see you in the Swamp,
Panic Stations 💚