Run and Solve | Portfolio Of

Jump and Solve

Overview

Solo puzzle platformer focused on simple interaction-based challenges.
Core mechanics include button pressing, box pushing, pressure plates, and respawn logic.
Puzzle design was inspired by Human Fall Flat.
Bonus tokens and slide movement were influenced by Crash Bandicoot.
Combat was included but kept secondary to the puzzle-platforming focus.

Design Focus

Designed puzzles around buttons, pressure plates, crates, and doors.
Used respawn mechanics to recover boxes if they fell out of bounds.
Included optional collectibles through bonus tokens.
Added light combat using a basic attack, charged heavy attack, and AOE star attack.
Prioritised puzzle solving over combat complexity.

Implementation

Built Blueprint Interfaces for buttons, pressure plates, and pickups.
Used inheritance for pickup types and button functions.
Created UI elements for the Main Menu, Pause Menu, Level Complete screen, and HUD.
Displayed player stats including death count, clear time, coins, stars, stamina, lives, keys, and bonus tokens.
Developed a Progress Manager for checkpoints, respawning, and status updates.
Created a player character with Mixamo animations, including a death animation.
Built two Game Modes: one for gameplay progression and one for the Main Menu.
Set up a Game Instance to carry data such as health, lives, and pickups across levels.

Problems Solved

Fixed infinite air sliding by checking whether the player was airborne.
Added a cooldown to stop slide spamming.
Used flowcharts to map pressure plate and door logic.
Added Boolean checks to track whether the player or crate was on a plate.
Placed small invisible cubes under crates to make movement smoother and prevent sticking.
Improved combat animation transitions by handling attack and stance montages directly in the character Blueprint.

Changes and Cut Features

Reworked the bonus round so it became part of the main level instead of a separate level.
Cut a second character with limited jumping and bullet-shooting due to scope.
Removed planned features such as a three-hit combo, platform-tilting mechanic, visible enemy health bars, and pressure-plate moving platforms.
Kept the final scope focused on the main puzzle-platforming loop.

Reflection

The project helped me practise Blueprint communication, UI tracking, and puzzle logic.
The biggest design lesson was keeping puzzle systems readable and avoiding unnecessary feature creep.