This week was the start of game jam week. Over the weekend we met and came up with our idea for the jam, a little platformer called Alchemical Adventure. The game would be fully top down and in it you play as a little witch/wizard looking to collect ingredients to make their finest potions. Although the image above may not look like it, the game will take place in a cave as you explore, platform on moving platforms across pits and rivers, and find each ingredient before they spoil.
As I am the only gameplay programmer on the team on Monday I set to work building the character controller for the game. I set up top down grid based movement as well as the system for objects that you can ride on. It was a bit of a headache getting it set up so that the player always snaps back to the grid even when they move off of a moving platform between two sections, but I got it to work.
On Tuesday I built a couple of the other systems, such as the timer and collectables, and tied them together into a life system so the player can die/reset when they run out of time or fall into a pit. I also started implementing some of the art the artist have made such as the walk cycle, water tiles, and ground textures. I have a few more tiles to implement but ran out of time today.
Next week I will continue to work on the game jam and hopefully have the whole thing built by Monday. There is still a lot to get done, but we have plenty of time to do it. I am happy with my progress these last two days, I think we are in a good spot to move forward from.
This week I would like to share with you a game that I made a few weeks ago with two close friends. The game is called Helsing and was made over a 6 week dev cycle. It is a walking simulator/horror game which is a retelling of the ending to Bram Stokers Dracula. In it you play as Mina, stranded in Dracula’s castle and following in the footsteps of her companion Van Helsing who is continuously out of reach. I am proud of how this game turned out but mostly want to share it because two people I have never met before somehow found the game and uploaded playthroughs of it to YouTube. I included links to the playthroughs at the bottom, but if you would like to play the game blind you can find it here: https://michael-anderson.itch.io/helsing