Cameron Murphy
Technical / Systems Designer
A 2D platforming shooter, in which you play as a robot that can manipulate your own gravity, and the gravity of enemies around you.
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Platform: PC
Date: Spring 2018
Role: Solo Project
Engine: Game Maker Studio
Description:
In this game, like many platformers, the player can move left and right, and perform a basic jump. The player can also aim anywhere on screen with the mouse, and shoot in that direction, which allows them to destroy enemies. Additionally, at any point the player is able to reverse their gravity so that they are walking on the ceiling, however there is a small cooldown before they can switch again. Additionally, the player can shoot out a small gravity switching projectile that reverses the gravity of any enemy or block it hits, which could be used to solve puzzles, stun the enemy, or help you avoid them. The main goal of the player is to make it to the end of each of the 3 levels, with the optional goal of collecting 3 secret CD's in each level.
Development:
This game was created for my Intro to Game Design class my Freshmen year, being one of the first major projects I worked on. When thinking of interesting game systems I wanted to build a game around, I was intrigued by creating a platformer in which the player can reverse their gravity at any point, which could offer some unique platforming challenges. After developing this further, I came up with the idea of being able to not only reverse your own gravity, but the gravity of enemies, which could offer unique puzzle elements. As a solo project, I worked on every aspect of this game, with the exception of some royalty free sound effects and music. I scripted the basic game mechanics in Game Maker Studio, in addition to building the levels and creating all 2D sprites. This whole game was scripted in Game Makers built in scripting language. While this was definitely a good beginners scripting language, being relatively simple and forgiving to newcomers, it was fairly limited compared to Unity and Unreal.
Conclusion:
Being one of my first major projects, this project taught me a lot about the basics of game development. While Game Makers programming language is much simpler and forgiving than more traditional programming languages, scripting for this game helped to pave the way for me to eventually script in Unity. Additionally, this was the first time I worked on other aspects of development such as animating and implementing 2D sprites, and designing levels. One key thing I learned from this experience and carried into other games, is that while some things in the game may seem obvious to the developer, and therefore the game may seem fairly easy, it is not as obvious to new players and as such it is important to keep that in mind when balancing the game.