Magnet Agent Dev Log #2

At the very beginning of development, Magnet Agent retained a strong Game Jam spirit: simple and fun. At that time, we didn’t have a complete framework for the game—we just wanted to create a light, casual experience with five or six levels. This mindset gave birth to the core items in the first two chapters: magnets and converters. Back then, magnets only exerted force in the vertical direction, and mechanics such as wall jumps and climbing did not yet exist.

During the Game Jam, this content was more than sufficient. However, once we decided to move into full production, problems gradually began to surface. The first issue was that magnets only worked vertically, which greatly limited the possible combinations when placing them. Even worse, when the character collided with a magnet from the side, there was no corresponding magnetic effect, creating a clear mismatch between player expectation and actual behavior.

How to represent horizontal magnetic force troubled me for quite a long time. The main consideration was how to increase level design possibilities while keeping the system predictable. After studying other 2D platformers, I decided to design horizontal repulsion as a wall-jump-like mechanic. This not only gives players an additional way to gain vertical height, but also allows them to change movement direction. Moreover, wall jumping is a well-established mechanic, which helps reduce the learning curve for players.

Horizontal attraction was an even trickier problem than repulsion. Unlike repulsion, attraction behaves more like a path or rail, pulling the character along slowly rather than imparting momentum. For a character moving horizontally, horizontal attraction is not only unhelpful but can even cause the character to get stuck in place. To solve this, I redesigned the behavior so that the character is flung onto the top of the magnet instead. This approach allows players to climb using attraction magnets, further increasing level variety.

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When the character enters the horizontal effective range of an attraction magnet, it feels as if an invisible hand picks them up and places them on top of the magnet. With the support of animations and visual effects, the entire process looks natural. More importantly, it remains predictable and relatively controllable. At first, we were concerned that this solution might not be intuitive enough, but subsequent playtests showed that most players were able to understand and master it very quickly.

At this point, Magnet Agent officially said goodbye to its Game Jam version and entered the next stage of development. Next, we will introduce how we built this world, and how later chapters expanded upon this system to add more mechanics and experiences. Stay tuned!