Bullet Guy

This game was made for the game jam Quad Jam #1 in which I had four days to create a game around the theme "Don't Kill anything" and was rated upon five factors;

Gameplay, Enjoyment, Uniqueness, Presentation and use of theme.

At first I brain stormed a few possible game ideas, but it has to be unique and I did not want to make something everyone else would try and make.

After I found an idea which sounds different and I wasn't expecting anyone else to have, I expanded on it and added features on the game play I haven't programmed before, because I like to challenge myself and see how far I can go.

I often think of making to 2D games 3D and I wanted this feature in my game.

(I have the tendency to write in english when making games and sometimes a little german, this is why this is mostly in English)

I wanted the game to be using the full potential of the window and make it visually 3D while being in 2D.

To make this happen I changed the ground into 3 Stages; the background, the middle and the foreground.

The player was supposed to fly behind and in front o objects on different stages, which I later on made trough depth and some comparing numbers.

Day1:

I completely worked on the game play and ideas for my game.

While working on the game play itself, it felt off that the bullet constantly flew in one line until I changed the course trough the keys in game.

This is when I found out about the Animation Curves, which came with a new update of Game Maker Studio.

I never used them before, but a game jam is an event which is supposed to let you leave your old habits behind and explore new areas.

Day2:

After I finally had the gameplay where I wanted it, I started with the art , parts of the story for my game and a few bug fixes.

The Story was around the theme "Don't kill anyone" and I created a Bullet who didn't want more pain in the world so it wanted to be a non violent Bullet.

Because I had to many ideas, I had to keep it simple and a lot of ideas didn't make it into the final product, for example the Eggs shown in the image above.

Day 3:

After having nearly everything together, I worked on the rest of the story and music for my game.

I changed the story into a father and a son , who talked about life and death and how everyone has one chance to live longer, but this chance is in each and everyones own hand.

After the Bullet Guy aka the player got old enough to be shot into the real world, his only purpose is to survive as long as he can.

For the music I used a program called BeepBox and made my own music with it.

Day 4:

I have my roommates test play my games a few times, even while still being on day one and I kept improving my game based on their feedback.

At first my games was really hard for some of them, this is why I changed the speed a little and added less objects, especially in the beginning.

Later on I even added a difficulty setting at the beginning to choose how hard the game is.

I adjusted the volume of the sounds and added more names to the story at the beginning to let everyone know who is talking.

I still have to change my game due to the feedback I got after the game jam, for example changing the colors a little, that way people can see on which stage (background, middle or foreground) they are.

In which case I have the idea to change the colors of the objects and player to a similar one for each stage and making the shadow on the ground a bit more darker to make it better visible.

(here I show only the levels) :

After the Rating:

After the Game Jam ended I got feedback on the visual effect of my game, because it was hard to notice where the player was in the last level, due to the colors from the boxers and the background. I want to work on the feedback I got trough out the game jam and see how people play my game in the near future.

My game got high ratings and got the first place in Game Play and Use of theme; the Enjoyment of my Game got to the second place.

All in all I can say this was a really good experience and this was the first game I actually finished in around 3 to 4 days.

Go back to my Portfolio

Go to the Bullet guy GamePage

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