Shinobi's Shadow
About: This project was made for the “Juice Jam II” game jam, where the entire jam was dedicated to making games with additional, satisfying details thrown in!
The team and I wanted to make something simple, given the short deadline and decided a simple hack-and-slash would be the best route to go for this game jam.
Not everything about this project went smoothly, as our project lead up and abandoned the project and our group in the middle of the jam and leaving a bit of a vacuum in regards to leadership.
I took it upon myself to lead the group and help push us all towards a game we could all be proud of and submitted for the jam. I’m so proud of everyone and how they all took a rather sizable setback and pushed through!
In regards to what I did for the project that I’m most happy with, is how I was able to make various paths for players to take to change up how they play the game!
There’s not one true path for players to take, offering up lots of different opportunities to take for each new playthrough as players try to get an even higher score than their first.
Project Breakdown:
- Genre: 2D Platformer, Hack-and-Slash
- Engine: Unity
- Team Size: 6
- Duration: 9 days
- Platform: PC
Design Process
With planning out this type of game, I took to Figma to designing it. I made sure that the design was simple enough with basic shapes and the like for my team to understand and know how the game would run. There were a few other drafts before this one, drafts that I have unfortunately lost to time, but this was the final draft that went into the engine and I built from.
This was the end result for the first half of the level!
This was the result for the second half!
Killer Combos:
When it comes to hack-and-slashers, people love performing great combinations! The more hits you land on an enemy the more points you’ll rack up and get a higher score when reaching the end. Enemies are placed evenly throughout the level, so there’s no shortage of samurai to cut down for some nice meaty combos! In addition, enemies also explode in a shower of pixels for an even more satisfying feel.
It was certainly tricky trying to find a right middle-ground for the combo depletion timer between kills, but we ultimately settled on a quick end to the combo if the player isn’t continuously striking the enemy. Our group wanted the combos to feel like they weren’t too easy to build up, and not have them feel as though they didn’t have weight or impact. Sure, a player could just rush towards the end of the level and not fight a single enemy but at the same time this would affect their score negatively. Don’t rush rush to the end, cause some mayhem on the way there!
Like the Wind:
Dashes are pretty common with just about any game we see nowadays. What we don’t often see are characters being able to dash in any direction! Up, down, forwards, backwards, you name it! Players can use this dash to attack enemies and continue that combo-count, or possibly use it to get to different areas across the level! It’s a multi-purpose ability for those that like to be creative as they are deadly.
When experimenting with the dash, we didn’t want it to feel too simplistic and we wanted players to really enjoy the feel of it each and every time. Originally the dash was going to just be a simple, quick slice forward and carrying the player in either a left or right direction, but we decided to take it one step further and do something a bit unique; why not have the dash be in any direction?!
Road Less Traveled:
The goal of the game is to ultimately reach the end of the level with a high score. However, there’s plenty of different paths the player can choose to get there! Already beat the game with a decent score? Maybe try a different path this time and see how that goes! No matter what, each different path to take will ultimately lead to the end so there’s no fear of picking the “wrong” path to take with this game!
When designing the drafts for this level, I wanted to give players the option to play how they wished; to take whatever path they wanted to and still reach the same end goal. To me, this wasn’t so much about the destination but the journey along the way! I wanted players to know that no matter what path they took to get to the end, they wouldn’t have to worry about taking the “wrong” path to get there.