Your Score Isn’t Your Story
Every Fall Has a Way Up
Gameplay Highlights
INTRODUCTION
In this side-scrolling parkour game, players find themselves on a life track that symbolizes the college entrance examination. Under the relentless pressure of looming deadlines, they struggle forward through different levels of learning environments, experiencing choices, setbacks, and the diverse possibilities of life’s outcomes.
Inspiration
As an "absent observer"
Systems Goal
Create an interconnected loop where GPA, stress, personality traits, family background, and Dream Items influence one another, allowing players to shape a unique academic path through accumulated decisions.
Player Goal
Achieve the highest GPA possible and survive to the end to unlock better endings.
Emotional Goal
To evoke the tension of academic pressure while showing that setbacks can reveal new paths and hope beyond the exam world.
Character Attributes
GPA and Stress Values
My inspiration comes from being an “absent observer” of China’s National College Entrance Examination. I never experienced it myself because I attended an international school and faced SAT and GPA pressure instead, and this contrast made me curious about how such system shapes identity and opportunity.
GPA Run abstracts these tensions, drawing from my observations of how my peers navigated academic competition. I hope this game reminds players that although everyone’s situation is different, there can be more than one route for learning and for shaping the future.
Core Mechanics
At the start of each run, players create a character with five attributes that define their starting stats:
Enemies
Homework
Deadline System
Chases the player after the run starts. If it catches the player, the game ends immediately.
Disappears briefly when outrun, but reappears at major structure transitions.
After falling to lower layers, the DDL follows by repositioning behind the player with a short delay.
Design Goals
Family Events
During gameplay, parents occasionally appear from the bottom of the screen to deliver supportive boosts or stressful interruptions depending on the player’s family background.
TEST
Level Structure
Level Design
The three-layer structure represents different learning environments. The player starts in the middle layer and can climb upward, stay steady, or fall to lower layers. Falling never means failure because each layer offers new opportunities ahead.
The level also incorporates a horizontal, Three-Act structure that shapes the emotional and narrative progression of a student's semester, from initial exploration to climax and resolution.
Upper Layer
Challenging platforming and test enemies create a tough path where players can maintain a strong GPA but find fewer Dream Items.
Middle Layer
Moderate enemies and platforming create a stable route that mirrors the standard academic track.
Lower Layer
A comfortable learning environment with easier platforms and many Dream Items, but too few test enemies make GPA hard to maintain.
Strategic Interplay
Players can intentionally drop to lower layers to collect Dream Items, then climb back up to pursue higher GPA. Others may stay on lower layers and reaching the end with low GPA. Even with identical starting attributes, different choices lead to different outcomes.
If the player reaches the end of the course, the ending is determined by three factors:
final GPA
final stress level
whether the Dream Item was kept or discarded
Different combinations of these values unlock different outcomes, reflecting varied academic and life trajectories.
Victory & Endings
Due to time constraints, the ending images are AI-generated mockups.
All character animations, item props, tilemaps, and all assets used in the actual Unity gameplay are original works by myself.
Reflection
Creating this game challenged me to explore how gameplay can reflect real-life experiences. I learned to align difficulty and narrative to evoke emotional engagement and discovered that one of my strengths is translating abstract concepts into meaningful systems. While further playtesting is needed to refine level balance, this project motivated me to continue crafting games that genuinely resonate with players.