Pathetic Dolls!
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About
A 2-4 player arena deathmatch game where a godlike moderator insults you and bombards you with obstacles. Steal coins from other players by hitting other players out of the arena. The player with the most coins at the end wins! Made on a team of 4 for Global Game Jam 2024.
My Contribution:
Responsible for programming and scripted events.
Designed different types of hazards that make the player lose coins.
Implemented art and audio.
Development:
The theme for this year's Global Game Jam was "Make Me Laugh". Out team initially struggled to come up with an idea, but we decided on an a game about toys being forced to fight while being made fun of by a godlike moderator. The objective would be to colect more coins than your opponents when time runs out. You would collect more coins by grabbing them as they spawn or stealing them by punching other players.
There are 2 types of hazards that spawn, falling rubber bands and tacks that fly in from the sides. The idea behind them is to punish players that stand still, because otherwise the best strategy is to hold as many coins as possible and stay out of the fight. Avoiding them often puts players near the edge of the arena where they can be knocked out, which loses you the most coins.
During playtesting, I had to tune how many coins spawn and how many you lose by being hit. I decided on making the amout you lose based on a percentage of the total you have. This makes the player with the most coins a target for other players since they drop more, and I gave the player in the lead a crown and particle effects to emphasize this. I also added a spinning obstacle that makes collecting coins that fall near it risky, but it can potentially be rewarding if you learn to time your jumps accordingly.
I made a lot of realizations during playtesting. Players kept trying to jump on top of the spinning obstacles, but wouldn't be able to since the surface didn't support walking at the time. Players also complained that the players were too hard to see since they were too small on screen. I responded by adding spotlights above the player to improving the visibility and made the camera dynamically move closer if the players are close together.
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