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Gold Express is a fast-paced mobile experience - An infinite side-scroller where you must collect as much gold you can, while doing cool tricks and explore the depths of the mountain.
The game started as a Game Jam prototype, that gained a lot of reactions and positive responses. To challenge ourselves we wanted to bring the game to the Play Store, as we wanted to explore what it’s like to create games for mobile. Game Jam Prototype on itch.io | Full Mobile Game Release for Android Play Store Below you can read about some of the challenges we faced on our journey from game jam concept to full game released on mobile. |
Gold Express was made by a 2-person team over the course of 6 months in our spare time, using evenings, weekends and holiday-days from our primary full time jobs.
My role in the project:
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Challenge #1: Aligning on feeling and style of the game before writing any code
A recurring challenge when creating games, is making sure everybody is aligned on what kind of game they’re trying to create.
It can be costly for a team to work in different directions. Often different roles have different perspectives on what the game they're trying to make is. So how do you make everyone aligned?
There are dozens of different ways to do this, but for Gold Express we tried something we haven’t done before – High Fidelity Visualizations of look and feel, BEFORE we started writing any code.
It can be costly for a team to work in different directions. Often different roles have different perspectives on what the game they're trying to make is. So how do you make everyone aligned?
There are dozens of different ways to do this, but for Gold Express we tried something we haven’t done before – High Fidelity Visualizations of look and feel, BEFORE we started writing any code.
Using Illustrator and Photoshop, I tried to capture both the style of the game, but also some of the game-play dynamics we wanted to aim for. We were able to grasp a lot of uncertainties early: What’s the camera angle? What’s the visual direction? Who is the player controlling? How does the environment react to the player?
Visualization of Gameplay Dynamics
It was important to capture both how the camera would zoom close to the character at impactful moments and also show the dynamics of rocks would be flying and air soaring along the car. I even added in the UI elements in the bottom left to simulate the full gameplay experience.
It was important to capture both how the camera would zoom close to the character at impactful moments and also show the dynamics of rocks would be flying and air soaring along the car. I even added in the UI elements in the bottom left to simulate the full gameplay experience.
Visualizations of Look
It took a long time finding the right visual style. For a while, I wanted the game to have a medieval look, but I couldn't get the foregrounds and backgrounds to work, and I didn't like the way the colors blended together. The Wild West look made everything fit together visually in a much nicer way, which is what we ended up going with.
It took a long time finding the right visual style. For a while, I wanted the game to have a medieval look, but I couldn't get the foregrounds and backgrounds to work, and I didn't like the way the colors blended together. The Wild West look made everything fit together visually in a much nicer way, which is what we ended up going with.
Challenge #2: How do you make a minecart jump?
One of the other challenges we faced was central to the gameplay. We knew we wanted the minecart to soar into the mountain, flying across different tracks and catching gold in the air.
So far we had set up ramps that the player could aim for, but it was not enough. There was not enough agency in the experience, it was too passive.
We had to give the player a way to jump with their minecart. But minecarts are heavy, and don't inherently have a way to suddenly start flying through the sky.
We broke down the core themes of the game and brainstormed different way's to make the cart jump. Maybe the wheels are on a spring? It could make mechanically sense, but is difficult to see that it's charging up a jump. Maybe it's a magical energy ball under the cart? Charging the jump is clearer but magical energy balls doesn't make sense in a wild west universe.
It wasn't until we started exploring the possibilities within the Wild West Universe that the answer became clear:
Wild West + Gold Mine = Dynamite!🧨🧨🧨
So far we had set up ramps that the player could aim for, but it was not enough. There was not enough agency in the experience, it was too passive.
We had to give the player a way to jump with their minecart. But minecarts are heavy, and don't inherently have a way to suddenly start flying through the sky.
We broke down the core themes of the game and brainstormed different way's to make the cart jump. Maybe the wheels are on a spring? It could make mechanically sense, but is difficult to see that it's charging up a jump. Maybe it's a magical energy ball under the cart? Charging the jump is clearer but magical energy balls doesn't make sense in a wild west universe.
It wasn't until we started exploring the possibilities within the Wild West Universe that the answer became clear:
Wild West + Gold Mine = Dynamite!🧨🧨🧨
In retrospect using dynamite to blast jump your minecart seems obvious, but it wasn't until we started breaking down the mechanic itself and explore the themes of the universe that it came to us.
It not only worked very well from an aesthetic perspective, it also allowed us to explore new gameplay concepts around dynamite in mines that we would later add into the game.
It not only worked very well from an aesthetic perspective, it also allowed us to explore new gameplay concepts around dynamite in mines that we would later add into the game.
One of the dynamite mechanic additions we added is a secret passage that the player can blow open with their dynamite and access a path with extra gold.
Challenge #3: How do you know when you're about to crash into the ground?
We gave the player the ability to jump and flip in the air. Now we needed to help them how to land. The core part of the game is landing on your wheels and reach as deep into the mountain as possible.
However, many players found it difficult landing, would land upside down, crashing and ending their run. We learned about this problem from observing players during playtests.
However, many players found it difficult landing, would land upside down, crashing and ending their run. We learned about this problem from observing players during playtests.
Extracting solutions from playtesting
Step 1: We observed players play the game.
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Step 2: We noted down all observations in raw text for each test.
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Step 3: I listed all observations on sticky notes for each participant.
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Step 4: I sorted the different observations in related themes / problems to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem.
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Step 5: I created "Solution-Trees" that listed possible ways to fix the different issues found in the test.
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After brainstorming different options, we came up with the solution: Hanging lanterns at a fixed distance to the ground gives the player just enough of a warning to be able to adjust their trajectory before hitting the ground.
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This not only solved the problem experienced by the players, it also opened for new gameplay features: Suddenly we could use the hanging lanterns to give the player extra gold if they hit them, complete objectives and bounce the player using dynamite.
Reception
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The game jam prototype of Gold Express participated in GameDev.tv Game Jam 2025, a game jam lasting 10 days with 1005 submissions. It performed super well, based on the popular vote, reaching a #3 position of most fun gameplay, #9 position of best mechanics and #13 best game overall.
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