Attuned
Game Demo
Game Instructions
Mouse over to destroy colored bubbles.
W or D = Change Color Ring
When you match the ring with the color of the bubble you are destroying you get a higher score. The more consecutive color matches you get a multiplier.
10-13-2016
Credits
Music
Tech
Demo
This game was created for the Epic Mega Game Jam 2016. The selected theme for the Jam was “Settle the Score”. We had one week to create the game, and we could have up to five members in a team. In my case, I decided to go alone this time, since I have already participated in the previous year with a group. While the experience with that group was great, I wanted to see where my skill would take me alone.
Before they announced the theme, I knew I had to make something simple. So decided to go with basic shapes and objects for the art and focus on the gameplay. When the theme was announced, at some point, I began to think of molecules, atoms, electrons, and how they interact with each other to “settle their score”. The player would have to control chemical reactions between elements and would have to “attune” to them to do more effectively. However, due to time constraints, I created a more simplified version of the original idea.
So instead of actual periodic table elements, I decided to go with colorful bubbles. I choose the three primary colors of the light spectrum, and when the colors touched one of the atoms, they could give you points or harm you depending on how well you attuned yourself to them, aka switching the colors. While the idea worked initially, it felt like an Idle game. I wanted it to feel more arcade-ish since the theme also made me think of high scores.
By that point, I added the element of poping/eliminating unwanted incoming color elements before they reached the attunement ring. This way, the player would have to decide what color bubbles he would want to destroy first while trying to get the bonus points.
So far the idea seemed interesting once the implementation worked; however, the time constraints didn’t let me explore this further other several mechanics. I had to settle with one attunement ring and send a bunch of bubbles to the center to destroy it. It felt more like the game missile command than what originally I had intended. Most people that have played it enjoy it.
The game jam judge found it exciting and encourage me to continue developing it for mobile platforms. However, I had several points deducted for a bug where the bonuses of the colors are inverted. Also, a point was taken off since the judge didn’t understand how my game fitted the theme. I was going to explain the whole chemistry thing during the twitch stream, but I was called to a job meeting when this happened, and I couldn’t answer his question. In the end, I was pleased because I got a 6.5 out of 10 for a game I made in a week and could have been way more if I fixed the color glitch and answered a question. At some point, I plan to pick up this project again and publish it in one major store at least.