Freshmen Year Game Project
Juan Hit Wonder ( Jan 2017 - Mar 2017)
Juan Hit Wonder is a fast-paced, top-down, hack & slash game where the player has to control a hero to defeat endless waves of enemies and bosses. The objective of the game is to defeat as many waves of enemies as possible while avoiding hazardous terrain, and collecting gold dropped by enemies to buy upgrades.
GAM150
Our freshmen year game project was developed by 5 programmers over the course of 3 months.
Alpha Engine
This was my first experience creating a game. Unlike commercial game engines, DigiPen's Alpha engine is simply a collection of header files and implementations of some engine features. It had some windows, graphics and physics functions that allowed us to create a 2D arena-style hack and slash. It was a very steep learning curve for me and most CS freshmen.
No Editor
Not having an editor was the biggest hurdle we had to overcome. We considered investing the time to create one but with only three months to create a game we decided every second spent on the game itself would be a better approach. We did all the calculations, planning and design on paper first before writing code and this was an experience I'll never forget. Thankfully our compile time was always less than 20 seconds.
Design
Because of the limitation of our skills at the time and the lack of an editor, we had to keep our design simple. We decided on a mobile style hack and slash with one player ability and one ultimate ability. The game "Fruit Ninja" was a huge inspiration. We added a stage/performance theme where, as your combo increased, the crowd would get excited and start applauding. They would also at times throw coins and hearts onto the stage to help you buy perks and keep your health full!
