Snow Day Mayhem
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Apologies for the lack of updates lately, things have been very busy! Our last project ended and now it’s time for Theme Park instead. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to finish our space shooter, Green Warden, because of the lack of manpower. But this doesn’t mean the project was a failure! I think we learned a lot of things in the process that we will be able to use during Theme Park. So! My Theme Park group consists of me and two other artists, as well as three programmers. I think this is a good number; I feel like everyone will have something to do without being overwhelmed. Our game is called Snow Day Mayhem. It is a top down multiplayer arcade game for four players. Each player has a trackball, which controls a snowball, and a button which activates a powerup. If the player doesn’t have a powerup it instead activates a dash, which knocks away other players. This is a mockup of our game, which our dear lead art has made:
The players start close to the middle and then move around the field to collect snow. The goal is to get the biggest snowball ever! You can collect powerups which you can use against your friends, for example powerups which gives you speed boosts, freezes other players or slightly melts other player’s snowballs. It is fairly simple concept, but we will need to spend a lot of time balancing the game. The powerups have to be balanced so that both new and experienced players can have fun and will have a chance to win. We will also test different ways that you can get powerups. Our three main ideas for now are to either let them periodically spawn in the middle, or to give the players powerups automatically, or to hide them under the snow so that players find them while moving around. I’m the producer of this game, which means I’m in charge of the planning. I have decided we’re going to use scrum for this project as well, since I quite like that way of working. I have also taken the role of lead sound, which will be interesting since I have never done that before. I think it will be an interesting challenge! The music in the game will be reminiscent of christmas music, which means I at least have a decent idea of where to start. I will try to update our progress as often as I can! 🙂  |
