AboutThis was my entry for the Hearth Game Jam (itch.io/jam/heartjam) and a personal attempt to get into finishing games. I made Ninjaloon with the Pico8 engine in a little under 2 days and I'm generally pleased as to how it turned out. It got the 8th place out of 152 total entries. There are certainly things I wish I had done better or spend more time on (especially looking at the repetitive music) but overall it was a good experience.
GameplayThe theme for the jam was "Scarcity", which I wanted to reflect in the gameplay. Inspired by titles such as "Minit" or battle royale games like "Fortnite" that have a really restricted world, I decided to make a bullet hell in a very confined space. The clouds are constantly closing in on you and you have to survive as long as possible.
The game was very hard in it's early stages, since fast shuriken are very punishing when you can't see them coming. To counteract this I added a slow motion mechanic that can be used at any point. It does run out though, so you have to be carfeul for when to use it and when to let it refill. I also tried to make all of the hitboxes as fair as possible, to make tight escapes more fun. As a last feature I also added bombs that occasional fly by and can be collected. You can hold up to three of these, and if activated they destroy all shurikens on screen. Their spawn rate may not be perfectly balanced, but using one in a close sitaution is very rewarding. Adding points for every shuriken destroyed with one bomb or gaining some slow-mo time would have also been some nice features to add. |