SOAK - the EPIC waterfight has begun.

Is it an endless runner or stages/levels? The video seems like it's more level based?

Well it's sort of a hybrid solution.

There are specific maps.. but each map is endless.

We plan on releasing new maps and boss fights and new interesting gameplay features as we go along. So the game doesn't get all stale over time.

Another level-ish aspect of the game is that we have "boss keys" that are only present at certain (hard to get to) locations in some iterations of the endless loop - you need to learn where they are to grab them...

This means there's a good reason to play the same "level" again if you missed one or more keys, and you will have to play it differently to get to the hidden locations.

Oh, and I would be the other tiny tiny half of the team

This is fun and it doesn't really feel like a runner, that's a good thing.

Happy you like it!

It is very deliberate that we didn't want to design a game that felt like all the other runners out there. Naturally we looked at them. But I didn't feel like emulating them would be a very interesting approach. With this comes a lot of risk also. But you know.. I want to make new cool stuff.

The game actually started out with a lot more free movement in the early game maker prototypes I was working on. But that didn't translate very well to mobile. So you can say the mobile constraints really pushed the design in the direction we have now.
But luckily didn't end up as 'just another track based runner'.
For that I'm happy.

It's nice being able to move about freely in the presented environment and choose your paths etc,. for the runner fans on these forums, I'm interested to hear your take on Soak

The free movement was in there from the beginning.

This is a shot from the first Gamemaker prototype mockup.
(It's not very pretty sorry)

WASD to move and mouse to aim and shoot.
The watergun was the primary weapon. And it worked quite well with full free movements. You can sort of spray battle enemy hosers and firehydrants. And do some relatively funky tactical moves.

But as told.. completely free movement + free aim didn't translate very well to mobile in a runner. That would have been a very different twin stick shooter game
And I HAD to scope something simpler then fairly large 3d complex environments. You would associate with a twin stick shooter. All depending naturally.
I still think there is some interesting gameplay with a primary watergun hosing setup somewhere to be found. Perhaps in conjunction with a physics based environment. That could be lots of fun. Something local/online multiplayer water battle something. But that's a completely different project.
I'm very happy for the design solution that came to be.

So we had to switch to a single axis for movement. That did work quite well. Only problem.. having a watergun didn't make a whole lot of sense suddenly. It's was ok'ish. But not really super fun. And I want super fun above all else.
So we went all in on doing waterballons as your primary weapon. Which are quite excellent! The whole precision aiming.. jumping and shooting part is just fun! In my opinion anyways.
There is just something fundamentally satisfying in a soak "kill". That is the result of your player skill based on a sense of timing and distance.

This is a really well done, impressively designed game and super addictive in a very good way. Feels like one of the freshest takes on the running game I've seen in a while. I, too, love that you can make choices as you run and throwing water balloons is awesome. Great job!

The Gameplay: