Game Jam
Theme: Deception,
Limiation: Death Affects More than the Player
Members Involved: Donald Neidecker-Gonzales, Audio taken from free assets
My Role: Game Design, Art, Narrative Design, Programming
In this 3 day game jam I was given the theme of Decpetion and the limitation that death had to affect more than the player. To fit this theme and limitaiton I made a schmup game about two wizards fighting. When you first defeat the wizard, you think you've won, only to be tricked as there is a second phase, which futher meets the limitation. In this second phase the enemy shoots down hostages and if you hit them with your bullet it damages you and nothing happens to the boss, meaning you must be much more careful with your shots.
On the first day I brainstormed and then came up with a plan of what I had to get done using Trello. Using the MoSCoW method, I planned out the priorty of things that I had to have, should have, could have, and won't have, and as time passed I made adjustments for my priorties which made sure I got the game done on time.
On the second day I focused on the art and gameplay of the game. For the art, I started by looking for reference images of how I could create my character. I ultimately went for a pixel art look and created all the pixel art as well as animations using aseprite.
After doing some of the art, I focused on gameplay. For the core mechanics I had it so that the enemy shot down magic in a random timed interval and then the player could destory them with their own bullets. To make sure this mechanic was useful and that the player would not be stagnant, I made it so that if the village was hit the player also would be damaged, incentivizing them to move around destroy bullets and protect the village.
After beating the enemy once I made the difficulty higher and switched up one of the mechanics. In addition, to moving faster and dropping magic faster, the enemy wizard now drops village hostages. If the player hits these or collides with them they are damaged, but the hostages won't damage the village. Now the player has to be much more careful with aiming and how they move around as they could easily die from spamming. Furthermore, this builds upon the limitation as death affects the enemy, not just the player, as it changes how it fights after dying.
On the last day, I put together a basic UI that included a start screen with the logo and a how to play screen that briefly shows the player the controls and goal of the game. I stylized both to fit into the retro aesthetic, and based the start screen off old NES start screens.
At the end of the game jam, a voting period occured where people rated your game and my game placed 9th out of 74 submissions and 4th in how I interpreted the theme.
