Catch Game: Catch & Dash

My version of Catch Game with movement enhancements made in Unreal Engine 5 using Blueprints.

Controls:
Move left - A/Left
Move right - D/Right
Jump - W/Up
Dash - Space/Left Shift
Fast fall - S/Down

Case Study:

I made this game to examine how movement enhancements would affect the gameplay of a simple Catch Game, while also practicing working with the engine.

Golden Apples:

I introduced Golden Apples as a progression system. They spawn on a fixed timer and the first five collected each unlock a permanent upgrade:

• Apples 1-3 - increase movement speed
• Apple 4 - unlocks jumping
• Apple 5 - unlocks dashing

If a player fails to collect a golden apple, the timer continues to count down and after a given time, another one will appear. Failing to collect a single apple does not result in any penalty other than a delay in unlocking the next ability.
This way, progressing doesn’t feel like a pressure, while players who actively try to collect the golden apples are rewarded.

After collecting 5 golden apples, they aren’t removed entirely. Instead, there is now a 15% chance that they will appear on the same timer. They give 10 points as a rare special drop instead of additional bonuses.
This keeps them relevant and surprising throughout the session without inflating the economy.
The intention was that players wouldn't expect them, but would feel genuinely rewarded when one appeared.

Problem 1 - (The Playable Area Was Too Wide):

One of the more interesting design problems came from the platform choice. The game was designed for PC, so the play area was much wider than the typical vertical screen used by many games of this type.

This created situations where valuable fruits could spawn far apart from each other, making it impossible for the player to reach both in time, especially before movement upgrades were unlocked.

Solution:

I made the fruit spawn area dynamically expand during the game.

At the beginning, when the player is slow and has no movement abilities, objects only spawn in a smaller central area.

The spawn area gradually expands over time until it reaches the full play area. Collecting a Golden Apple also temporarily expands the spawn area further.

This keeps the distance between possible targets appropriate for the player's current movement capabilities.

Problem - Movement Speed Had to Progress With the Spawn Area:

Simply keeping the spawn area permanently small would have solved the problem, but it would also have limited the game as the player's movement capabilities increased.

Solution:

I connected the expansion of the spawn area with the movement progression.

Golden Apples increase the player's movement speed before unlocking jumping and dashing. This gradually gives the player access to a larger area while simultaneously increasing their ability to navigate it.

This made the movement upgrades part of the solution to the original spawning problem rather than just additional abilities.

Observations:

The combination of increasing movement speed, more complex movement options and faster falling objects significantly changed the game's character.

What initially felt like a simple game about catching colourful objects gradually became a much more skill-focused arcade game.

In the later stages, the main challenge is no longer simply catching the good objects. The player needs to prioritize avoiding banana peels while collecting fruits whenever a safe opportunity appears.

I liked this change because it made the game increasingly focused on player skill and reaction rather than simply collecting as many objects as possible.

What I Would Change:

I would add separate difficulty modes:

• Easy – one banana peel variant
• Normal – two variants
• Hard – all three variants

Each mode would also have its own movement and spawn speeds.

At higher speeds, having several dangerous objects and multiple types of fruit can become difficult to distinguish visually, so reducing the number of object types at lower difficulties would make the game easier to read.

I would also experiment with a way to recover or gain an additional life.

The current game leaves very little room for mistakes at higher speeds. A carefully designed second-chance system could give the player a small margin for error without removing the skill-based nature of the game.

Key Takeaway:

This project taught me that movement mechanics can affect much more than just how the player moves.

Increasing movement speed and adding new abilities changed how objects could be spawned, how difficulty progressed, and eventually transformed the entire game from a simple catching game into a fast-paced skill challenge.