Break your records in this Shmup by holding the Space bar to enter the calm and invincible state to avoid the storm of enemies. In the invincible state, you can also recover health points, but beware where you land afterward.
Genre: Shoot'em Up, Arcade
Engine: Unity
Team size: 3 people
Duration: 1 week
Date: september 2024
Context
Space Shifter is a Game Jam project organized by Brackeys Youtuber, with the theme “Calm Before the Storm”. I was the solo developer, working alongside a Game Artist and a Sound Designer.
My goals
My goal as a solo developer was to continue improving my coding skills. Despite the concept being relatively simple and lacking depth, I wanted to make the project as juicy and satisfying as possible, focusing primarily on Game Feel.
Screenshots
My Roles
Game Developer
I focused mostly on the Game Feel and Juiciness of the game, coding it in C# and creating the VFX in Unity.
I wanted to make the game immediately readable despite its simplicity, using color, shapes, affordances, and clear feedbacks to communicate gameplay elements.
I also implemented a variety of sound effects and progressive music using FMOD.
Game Feel & Juiciness
Game & Level Design
Enemies
I designed 3 enemy types, whose combinations create different gameplay situations:
Square: Moves toward the player and is destroyed on contact, taking away one heart. Dangerous when they appear in large numbers.
Triangle: Shoots slow projectiles at the player that remove one heart. Has more health than the Square.
Wall Rectangle: Appears on one side of the screen and moves toward the opposite side. Deals one heart of damage on contact and cannot be destroyed. Multiple walls can appear at the same time.
These enemies encourage the player to frequently change state in order to move safely, dodge attacks, or heal in critical situations.
Procedural Waves
I also designed and coded the procedural enemy wave spawning system. The idea was to gradually adjust several enemy and spawning parameters based on the amount of time the player had pass in the game:
Enemy parameters increase: more health and higher movement speed.
Enemy quantity probabilities increase.
The probability of shorter spawn intervals increases.
The probability of having multiple Wall Rectangles simultaneously increases.
These parameters eventually reach their maximum thresholds after a certain amount of time, making the game progressively more challenging, and granting a good paicing.
Walkthrough
Credits
Game Developer
Ralif TAZUTDINOV
Game Artist
Raphaël LERAY
Music & Sound Designer
Renaud GAILLARDON
