Gravity's Edge: Behind The Scenes

Welcome. If you've reached here you've reached the vast corners of space. You've reached Gravity's Edge.

Begin an epic space journey filled with strange worlds, engaging puzzles, and a dense Afro-punk theme. Another challenge also awaits you in 'Survival'. There you will face off against oncoming hordes while searching for the Ability Anvils. Are you ready to become a Kassler?

This page is dedicated to the Art/Music/Story and other behind the scenes things associated with the game Gravity's Edge.
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Topic outline:

1. About The Team
2. Afro-Caribbean Lore
3. Space Concepts
4. Game Dev Dumpster Dive 

Let's begin

About The Core Development Team

Kamau Vassall - Design | Concept | Programming
As a person of Afro-Caribbean  decent, making a game like this is something  I've always dreamed of. I met and became friends with Sam and Jamail throughout the years and doing Game Jams together (check my collection and you'll see their names!).

Sam McCollum - Art
A talented artist that is intensely passionate. He works part-time at a Comic book store / Art Gallery just to be surrounded by art.

Jamail Chachere - Music
An extraordinary musician who not only composes for video games but also does live shows. You'll catch him on stage with a guitar in hand

Hey what are you waiting on? Go ahead and finish the exam! -Michael Chan (Kassler)

Afro-Caribbean Lore

Akan Symbology: Most of the symbology in Gravity's Edge is rooted in Akan and Ghanian culture. If you are interested, below is a listing of Adinkra Symbols that were heavily throughout the game.  (Adinkra are symbols from the Akan people of Ghana that represent concepts, ideas, and aspects of philosophy)

Eye of The Universe - https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/symbols/abode-santann/
Sankofa - https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/symbols/sankofa/
Twisting - https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/symbols/nkyinkyim/
Akofena - https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/symbols/akofena/
Fence - https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/symbols/eban/

There are more, however, these were the most prominent and also were some of my favorite while growing up. A bit of Trivia... I used to have Eye of the Universe as my bedroom headboard.. So I might be a little space obsessed. If you spot the others and want to talk about them I'd love to hear from you. 

Caribbean dialects: The dialect used in the game is primarily based on Jamaican  Patois. There are some Asian & Texan influences on how things might be phrased in order to appeal to the back story of the game. (The shows "The Expanse" and "Firefly" might have had some influence).
As I drew upon ideas of the game, I had a vision of the future where at the edges of space (or at the edge of Earth's seas) the people there would change how they speak to differ from those who live in more populated regions (for mostly social reasons). As someone of Jamaican decent I could have made up all new slang, idioms, and words to distance myself from patois being used as a space dialect... but I felt like culturally using a light amount of patois worked better.

Share some wine! Buss a wine! - Betty Black (Outdeh)

Exploring Space Concepts

When approaching the design of this project, Space and Gravity were at the forefront of the conversation. Inspired by my own obsession with the Cosmos and desire to understand the Universe I tried to iterate on all the game's mechanics based on real life physics.

I'd love to know which part of (the) physics is your favorite.

I wanted to answer the question... what happens when you create a game that has 

• Rotating worlds
• Worlds that orbit each other
• Worlds of ice❄️ and fire🔥
• Worlds that move as you land (as all worlds do!),
• Worlds where its difficult to breathe
• Worlds where gravity would be super strong or super light
• Worlds where Quantum mechanics interplay
• Worlds that could be both created and destroyed
• Black and White holes that you can travel through
• Meteors
• ... and a system where the player and various creatures  could interact with all these mechanics in tandem!

Come off mi land brudda - Alton Maroon (???)

A Game Dev Dumpster Dive 

Development Plan and Schedule:

Gravity's Edge initially started off as a Game Jam in February 2025 with the goal of making a game in less than a year. Why a year? Well to keep costs low. To "fail fast" with lower risk. To push the limits of my abilities. To prove that it was possible like it was in the 80s and 90s.

The game was actually inspired from several games from that era like for instance "Clash at Demonhead" and Faxanadu. The list of games that gave some sort of inspiration is quite large. Ask me and we can have a lengthy conversation about them.

The game was originally supposed to be a very small concept as it was just me (Kamau) on the project at the time (the other members of the team didn't join until August). Where did the concept come from? Well that came off a separate Game Jam (made using Unity) called Fight For Phoenix (ATX Game Makers 2nd Annual Game Jam-A-Thon - Jan 2024). I pondered, "How could you progress to additional worlds in order to defend them?" and "What if you were a dude instead of a space ship and you simply jumped to the next planet and each planet also had people and a small RPG element to it?". The project went by the name "Stars of the Arcana" but that wasn't sticking with people at all.

In July, I had fleshed out the majority of the game's story, but something about the mechanics felt unexplored. I woke up out of my sleep restlessly one night and the thought snapped into my head "You should be able to play with your friends and set traps!". This birthed Survival mode. After finishing Survival mode the final name of the project became more obvious, thus we get Gravity's Edge.

The game's addictive design comes from doing a lot of in person events (Tabling at museums and kid friendly events) and subsequent game jams where real players were able to play the game and provide useful feedback throughout the entire process. The goal? Sell at least 1,000 units to break even on development costs (since the game would only accrue a year of costs).

In the world of game development, plans like these are controversial. I gladly await to hear from those who'll say I did this all wrong

Development Tools/Engine:

Gravity's Edge does not have an "Engine" perse. But it is built on top of two things that I think are worth mentioning.
Raylib is a self described "simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming"
JAI is a low level programming language made for video games. 

These two pieces of technology, together, probably equates to a nice nugget and booster to the development speed of the game. Raylib allows you to get pixels up on the screen in roughly 10 lines of code as well as coming packaged with audio and small amounts of collision detection libraries. JAI comes with profilers, memory debugging, and just tons of things that most programming languages don't even consider.

What about the lighting system? particle system? save system? asset handling? rendering pipeline? Audio manipulation? And most importantly... The UI/Level editor? Well I simply... just coded them.
It took a while! No seriously... months of just coding and not adding ANY gameplay (I did write down any ideas that popped into my head, I just didn't code at all on them). And in that process I learned ALOT! Most of these huge technical pieces were  done AFTER the first game jam in February. So during March and towards July, once I felt I had a good idea, iterating on all these pieces did not feel like a waste of time. Often I find building out these systems from scratch before having an "idea" can lead to a road paved with misery.  A small warning to people who simply want to build an "engine" or "build their game from scratch" before even knowing what their game is.

Believe it or not you can just make things! -Kubel Kahn (Digital Cove)