GDC 2025 Session Viewer
Jazz Platforming in 'Penny's Big Breakaway'
Esteban Fajardo (Senior Game Designer, Evening Star)
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass - Get your pass now!
Track: Design
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
Learn how the design team at Evening Star brought their experiences with classic Sonic games into the 3rd dimension with their convention shattering debut title: Penny's Big Breakaway. Can a platformer be fun without collectibles, combat, or camera control? In stripping the genre back down to the roots, Evening Star pushed 3D platformers in a new direction: the Jazz Platformer! This talk will break down how they created gaming's most acrobatic new mascot and the secrets to building levels that celebrate player expression and improvisation.
Takeaway
Attendees will walk away with a better insight into how to increase meaningful player freedom, and how to build spaces that support that freedom. This talk will teach new techniques for designing expressive character abilities, tricks for managing character momentum, and recommendations on how to implement dynamic camera systems.
Intended Audience
This presentation is for game designers interested in maximizing player expressivity through character mobility, and level designers working with momentum-based gameplay or implementing fixed camera setups.
