Bomb Rush Cyberfunk : And How They Squeeze The Most Out of The Game Mechanics Lemon
- Joshua Liew
- Nov 29, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: Dec 13, 2024
First, a description of this game:
A jet booster assisted based trick game, built on chaining tricks on your wheels of choice, tagging(spray painting) walls and grinding sweet air into trick points. A tale of an upstart street gang, kicking the top gangs off their thrones in pure style( 2000s futurism style, to be exact). Basically a modernized spiritual successor to classic Jet Set Radio series for those who have been craving like me.
In lack of a developer explicitly listing their design goals to me (presumably on the wings of a skateboarding carrier pigeon, with a sense of style…who texts me on their flip phone with said wings). The by-product of developers’ design decisions have lead me to confidently believe that the target game play experience is a movement & combo system that the player easily slips into using during their time with the game, very quickly second nature even, with combos flashy, intentional, yet personal in expression. At its most experienced, it allows every level to be played in one continuous combo chain to completion. And all while embodying the identity of a free-spirited street punk.
How? Throughout this essay I will explore how Bomb Rush Cyberfunk achieves its cohesive, closed and looping game system that meticulously sustains its most fun play patterns and fantasy.
Now allow me to run through the hypothetical trail of receipts left by the developers for us.
To set the stage let's look at the foundation of their game play systems.
Core Game play:
Trick Points: Doing tricks will add to a tallied point total rewarded at the end of the current combo chain of tricks.
Combo chain: Any off ground trick will automatically start and continue a chain, combos end when the player touches a ground surface without doing a Manual, or stopping movement(by controls / at walls / crashing into cars).
3 Trick buttons: Each button pertains to a unique trick. Adds trick points to combo chain. There are no hard blocks from activating these buttons freely between each other, freely accessible at virtually anytime, meant to be the building block(core game play loop) of most game play duration. Also does damage to enemies.
Mount and dismount on vehicle button: self explanatory, that also doubles as a trick button while in the air (it can be weaved into player combos if they're feeling fancy).
Trick Surfaces: These surfaces add trick points and are an automatic combo chain extender.
Rail Grinding: Landing on any rail surface will activate this and the player will follow the rail path until the player rides off the end or jumps off.
Rail Leaning: Leaning into sharp turns in rails gives the player a speed boost and adds 1 multiplier to your total point multiplier in your current combo chain.
Billboard Grinding/Running: Landing on any billboard surface will activate this, and the player will follow the rail path until the player rides off the end or jumps off. And adds 1 multiplier to your total point multiplier in your current combo chain.
Half Pipes: “U” shaped / halved Slopes that puts you in a unique air state where you can perform tricks in a tall but limited trajectory. Or the player may Air Dash out of the trajectory to reach previously inaccessible locations. Doing a trick adds 1 multiplier to your total point multiplier in your current combo chain.
Slopes: Going down a slope during a Manual Refills the Manual duration and grants a speed boost.
Air Dash: Activated in the air to launch the player forward an extra distance.
Meter Boost: A significant sustained grounded/aerial speed boost that uses up a meter as long as the player keeps its button held. The meter is filled by chaining tricks in 1 combo chain.
With this foundation, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk painstakingly created many
Supporting mechanics that push players toward a preferred play pattern:
Always be doing tricks:
The Points Display: Juicy points gratifyingly tally up before your eyes only when doing tricks. And the only system in the game rewarding the player in this way. This powerfully pulls the player’s(and my) monkey brain into engaging with the system.
Directly teaching players: Advanced combo chain mechanics/ unclear mechanics that assist in building high scores and/ combo chains. Explained in text by NPCs.
Challenges vs. NPCs: NPCs tend to highlight and visually recreate specific aspects of the trick system(eg. you can chain wall runs).
Puzzles that challenge players' ability to maintain a combo: A bunch of robots you have to high five(pass by) on a level within a single combo chain, placed in difficult positions(if lacking in movement & trick system experience).
Multitudes of combo chain extending tools:
”Manual” Trick: A held trick done on the ground, keeps combos extended for a limited duration. Holding the Manual button also causes jumps to be shallow for extra control and also punishes holding down the Manual button permanently (and lazily), keeping this trick intentional. Because it is easy to find yourself holding the Manual button at all times just in case you ever miss a jump towards a rail.
Meter Boost Tricks: Activated when doing a trick and a Meter Boost at the same time. It boosts the player’s speed and allows the player to add points to the combo chain as well as reset the Manual’s limited duration, allowing the player to continue their combo on the ground a bit longer to reach the next distant rail/billboard. With how meter is gained and using meter boost tricks, in a sense, the more you engage in the trick system the easier it is to maintain, as a reward.
Non-trick combo chain extenders: Hitting dumpsters/vending machines and Tagging(spray painting) walls continue combos chains. It directly makes it more accessible to leisurely sustain a combo chain as much as possible.
Dumpsters and vending machines also grant resources that refill the Meter Boost’s Meter. This does require the player to stick around in front of the damaged property, meaning this is good for assisting new players in one way; for experienced players, a casual tool to use then immediately keep rolling past(who likely will have no problem sustaining their boost meter just enough to get to the next trick surface).
Do fresh stuff & Keep moving around the level:
New trick surface point multipliers: Only new individual trick surfaces(eg. Any new rail set not connected to a previous rail set the player has gained a multiplier on) can add point multipliers to the current combo chain to make you want to explore other parts of the level to see other game play opportunities. Or to keep combos fresh and non-repeating as possible if the level is complete and the player is focusing on growing their combo chain.
High score tests: NPCs challenge you to a point race in a limited time. Testing the player in the most targeted test of the ideal play pattern. The harder ones become more optional for the main story and rely more and more on maximizing multipliers.
Tricks stale: Players earn less points should they spam tricks.
I sort of lied, there is one thing that the skateboarding pigeon did text me,
Cops were meant to mostly be just a nuisance. The player character is not an activist, they aren’t fighting to take down the system, but simply trying to get some temporary obstacles out of their hair to get back to living their life. Whether it be around or through.Cops only appear in a level when the player does enough actions of note, from tagging walls and other ruffian things, like something reflected in Grand Theft Auto’s heat system. According to Dion, this was intentional, if cops were around normally without a heat system, players were driven to think they should spend their time fighting them. My guess as to why, to new players an object exists to be interacted with and with previous experience from most games behind them, if an enemy is inherently spawned with the level that means one should fight them. Which sets a bad precedent into what assumed actions is the core game play loop they should be engaging in. The characters preferences on combat are also why tricks are able to do damage with no guns or weapons as options. I'm assuming the thinking is that this pushes players to return out of fights and back into the movement system, because of the nature of how the vehicles and their tricks slide you around naturally, easily moving you out of the crowd of enemies you engage with.
Cops: Though they come in variation, they can largely only hit immobile targets. They keep the player moving to avoid getting harmed, and put pressure on specific areas of the level to also push the player to explore other parts and potentially see other game play opportunities(eg. like multipliers).
Recycled core game play in other contexts:
My favorite Design philosophy (that I recognize most frequently in indie games) is the reuse of core mechanics to solve problems in different contexts. At a games best, the majority of assets are kept efficiently reused. Unfortunately Bomb Rush did opt for a whole set of player move set dismounted from vehicles that in the final product are easily replaced by the mounted move set.
Combat game play:
Bosses and major enemies are smartly on the developers’ part magically solved by using the games movement and combo system.
All trick buttons are also full combat move set when the player is not mounted on a vehicle. They do animate differently, but feel wise, don't act much differently than tricks on vehicles. So it's very intuitive to use.
Meter boost / Meter Tricks can also be used as powerful attacks.
Tagging is used to temporarily blind human cops.
Attacks / tricks are used to hit robots and activate tagging weak zones.
Moving dodges melee enemies, and dodges sniper fire.
Machines that launch rocket propelled shackles, can be avoided with high speed/jumps and once shackled, are broken with tricks.
Not getting hit for a time activates a heal over time. This inherently suggests the player stay moving to keep untargetable.
Puzzle game play:
In a game about movement, the game logically largely relied on navigation puzzles. On top of that, Whether intentional or not, the outcome of Bomb Rush’s puzzles train the player to explore the level, use your eyes mid movement, and use your camera:
Trains you to use Manuals in general tricks:
Infinite slide mats: Mat surfaces that give combat mode slides infinite duration. Creating a race track mini-game out of it. Trains you to use Manuals in general tricks.
Hidden rooms: Accessible only by combat mode slides.
Tagging used to unlock / break machines: Reuse of the Tagging mechanic and reuse this mechanic for an intuitive move to reach for, and a good chance to cut a new set of animations. Especially with all the effort they put into their Tagging pseudo cut-scene animations
To keep your brain engaged and the camera moving. Important skills for the games mid-movement, fast-paced game play:
High five puzzle unlock rooms: Even these rooms unlocked from high five robots require the player to look around a storage space for the unlock-able, commonly hidden somewhere in the room.
Heights to reach using only the specific mechanics of the games. Navigation puzzles that can only be solved in the perspective of the game’s mechanics, teaches you to see the level/world in the perspective to find the new trick points that lead to new areas or unlock-able.
Sometimes all you have in a hidden place is a box and you have to realize that you hit it for the reward. Little puzzle aspects of where they could be.
Vertical rails, and upside-down rails: Not only add variety to what rails do for the player, but also allow rails to be hidden out of sight of the player more effectively. Leaving them as more content for the player to have to discover.
Finally, we can’t go without the stage for the mechanics to act upon, we have the
Level design that serves the game play and fantasy:
Stairs: Going up a set of stairs at all pulls the player off their Vehicle and forces their current combo chain to end. But doing a manual down sets of stairs function exactly like a Slope. This keeps manuals more intentionally used, and is a level design puzzle that changes from obstacle to benefit dependent on the direction of the player's destination. Sometimes stair sets are long enough that the only option is to jump sets in succession. This really lets players feel a sense of mastery over the city.
Rails are extremely common and tend to be grouped near each other, and the main mode of sustaining the movement/combo system.
Vending machines and garbage bins, in alleyways where rails are rare, and in between long reaches of trick surfaces. It helps keep the combo chain going with a bit of effort. And beating up public property is just a very punk thing to do.
Placement of meter filling resources: Generally frequent in their placement across a level.
Citizens of the city: Exist all over the city in large amounts, just living their life. It really highlights the type of place, steeped in norms, you're turning into your playground, because you just don’t care like that.
Levels are just parts of a city: A bus station, a leisure plaza, road guard rails, maintenance platforms, a mall. All for your player character to disrespect and abuse (in pure style).
As you can see, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a beautiful looping (meticulously sprayed on) art piece that simultaneously teaches and rewards its greatest fun, and effortlessly back-flips in alignment with the core fantasy of the game.
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