Enso is a deceptively tricky precision platformer I created as a solo game development project.
I truly enjoyed crafting both the 2D and 3D visuals for the game, and programming its systems in C#. The whole experience was built using Unity.
In February 2025, the game was quietly released on Steam. As I did not have a marketing budget for Enso, I did not expect many sales of the game, but it still picked up a little traction with some players from the speed running community, which was lovely.
Art Direction
For this game I chose a minimalist Japanese art style, mixing 2D silhouettes, low-poly 3D models, and making great use of the parallax effect.
While the player only comes into direct contact with 2D objects, the 3D models are used as background elements to enhance the perception of height. As the player climbs higher and higher, your view upon these objects become closer and closer to a birds-eye view.
I created various elements throughout the game that react to the player’s presence. For these butterflies, I drew the wings in Affinity Designer, and then animated them in Blender.
This animation was rendered as an image sequence, which I proceeded to package into a sprite sheet, and used as a texture for a particle simulation in Unity. This allows each butterfly to flutter off in a slightly different direction, giving them a lot more life than a static animation would.
Other interactive objects were created using physics objects so that the player can bump off them and climb up them.
These lanterns used a custom physics animation script I wrote to simultaneously allow them to have a procedural wind animation and also move seamlessly when interacted with by the player.
I created a surprisingly complex shader for the ball you play as. This is because, even though the ball only takes up a tiny portion of the screen, I wanted there to be enough detail present to be able to make it much larger, this added detail has the benefit of helping with its glassy aspect.
It was also important for me to be able to control the colour of the ball shader dynamically, so I exposed a variable that allowed me to control the hue of this element, and the results are wonderful.
Level Design
Arguably the most important aspect of the game, except possibly how the controls feel, is the level design. Being a skill-based physics game, it was imperative to create a level that teaches the player as they progress.
The level winds back-and-forth across its own path as it climbs its way up into the sky and beyond. This is so that when the player falls, they have a chance of landing on a lower section of the map, rather than falling all the way to the bottom with each mistake.
I made sure that difficult sections of Enso, that require learning a new movement technique, were placed in relatively safe places. This makes it less likely for the player to lose too much progress and get repeatedly frustrated. A little frustration is expected in this genre of game, but too much will cause many players to give up and never reach the end.
Logo & UI
Ensō is the Japanese creative practice of using ink to paint a circle in one fluid stroke, and is part of Zen Buddhism. Just like the challenge in my game, the ensō is its own merit and its own reward.
I took inspiration from these beautiful calligraphic circles when designing the logo. The circle also representing the ball you play as in Enso, a fruit fallen from the tree of life that you must climb back up to and reunite yourself with.
The UI is themed to fit with the minimalist Japanese style of the game, and is designed to be easily navigated by mouse & keyboard and controller users.
Steam Page & Trailer
I created the store artwork using Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, making sure to optimise the images for high visibility in the store browser and game library.
The trailer for Enso is as true as I could make it, to what actually playing the game feels like. I did not wish to insert marketing messages into the trailer, preferring to lean on showing the game for what it is and letting the customer make their own judgement on whether the game is a right fit for them.