Howl
Genre: Action platformer
Software used: GameMaker Studio, Aseprite
Role: Programmer, artist, designer (solo project)
This was my the first project I had worked on using a dedicated engine and editor, GameMaker Studio. I worked alone on this project, meaning that I was the sole person responsible for everything: programming, art, design, sound, etc. While GameMaker Studio does provide its own physics engine, for this project I decided that I wanted to program all of that stuff manually to help get a better understanding of how to program with multiple things in mind. For this game I started off with a simple concept, and designed the rest of the game around the engine once I got it to a state where it was fun to move around.
The concept of the game came from when I was playing one of my characters in the game Guild Wars 2 while listening to the band Eluveitie. Having a barbarian lady bringing destruction to her enemies while guitars shred in the background is just something I think would have been a neat concept. From there, I decided that the game would be level-based like a Castlevania game, but giving the player the maneuverability of something akin to Mega Man X. The plan was that the main character would have multiple attack moves the player can perform, but due to time constraints I was unable to add them. Originally she was also only able to dash on the ground (like in Mega Man X), but in playtesting people had remarked that they enjoyed being able to dash in the air as well, and so I decided to leave that in.
One of the things I had in mind from the very start for each enemy was that they would have multiple phases, as I felt that would be an interesting way to accomplish multiple difficulties. Some enemies would begin to attack more recklessly, they might have increased speed or power, or maybe they would start to perform new attacks entirely. At higher difficulties, maybe enemies that run away become empowered, or they gain a new phase. In the project I submitted, there are only two enemies: a basic enemy that wanders around, and a wolf. The basic enemy will walk with no regard as to where it will move (unfortunately sometimes to their demise at the edge of a cliff), but when their health reaches a certain point, they would instead move away from the player at a faster rate. The wolf enemy is programmed to look a certain number of units ahead of it, and if the player is inside that area, it will proceed to jump at the player. It also sees a boost in speed in the second phase, and increases the range at which it will jump at the player to accommodate this change. The very end would have been a boss encounter, but time constraints got in the way of adding mechanics for it.
Given that this was my first project that was also in a language I wasn't familiar with previously (GML), the primary difficulty was to get the main engine working properly. Some aspects in the game included things that we did not cover, nor would the major itself cover until later courses. The vast majority of the sprites as well as all of the sound come from other sources, as I unfortunately did not have the time to create unique art and sound for everything. With that said however, the sprites for the main character are unique, and it was my first time ever doing spritework. The game is unfinished, buggy, and infringes on multiple copyrights, but I'm still proud of the work I've done for this project. Given that I know more in other languages and engines now than when I worked on this project, I do not plan on returning to it. If I was to continue with the concept, it would be created once again from scratch.
Screenshots
