GA Autumn 2023 – WizWood

A wizard whose spellbook pages were stolen has to fight their way through obstacles and enemies in an enchanted forest to get the pages back. WizWood is a top-down shooter inspired by the arcade classic Gauntlet.

The idea
In the very beginning, we liked the idea of a top-down game and all the artists agreed to work on a fantasy theme. Gauntlet was a natural reference and a good starting point to develop our own game. However, there were things we wanted to change about Gauntlet. We did not like how the controls felt in the original game, and we thought it would be cool to turn the usual dungeon crawling into a more open-space world, which would also allow the main character to use a wider set of abilities.

The idea of progression in the game through the acquisition of spell pages was almost immediate, and so were the main character design and most enemies. We also liked the idea of having three levels with clearly distinct environment and we started working towards that goal.

The Process
The initial progress was quite slow as we did not have a clear idea of what the main mechanics would look like. The feedback we received was very useful and helped us understand in which direction we wanted to move.

Once we had the complete set of spells for the main character, it became easier to develop the game further by calibrating the enemies and designing the levels.

The work was mostly done individually at home but we had a weekly meeting to gather ideas and opinions and to help each other. Both programmers and artists had some major individual areas to focus on but everyone helped here and there whenever needed.

Play the game here!
https://overlunch.itch.io/wizwood

Our Team

Programmers:
Esa-Pekka Palonen
Oskari Kuusisto

Artists:
Helmi Voutilainen
Leonardo Fedi
Riina Koivisto

December 15, 2023

GA Autumn 2023 – Magic Mayhem

Seven is a magical number, and guess what? That’s the exact count of members in our elemental group! You’d think seven introverted game nerds would spend these four months being all shy and introverted. But lo and behold – we did manage to create something magnificent AND magical! We present to you…

Magic Mayhem

Magic Mayhem is a heart-pounding, spell-slinging top-down shooting game packed with wizarding goodness. Drawing inspiration from the classic top-down shooter Time Pilot, we set out to create a gaming masterpiece!

In Magic Mayhem, you step into the robes of Aurelius, an ancient and wise wizard standing tall against the chaos and destruction threatening his world. Brace yourselves – Aurelius’ closest allies, the royal spirits of the elemental realms, have mysteriously cut off communication and unleashed their armies on the material plane. Yep, they’ve gone rogue, and it’s up to you to uncover the truth behind their betrayal!

Magic Mayhem Water Boss fight scene — *Aurelius is badass – but so are the bosses!*

Get ready to dive into a world of magical art and sound as you journey with Aurelius, a master of magic who’s about to level up in badassery! Throughout his quest, he unlocks a vast array of new and thrilling spells. Each magical ability not only boosts his power but also arms him to face even more menacing foes.

Trailer music: Borgar by Alexander Nakarada (www.creatorchords.com) Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

For those who’ve been with us since the beginning, there’s a wicked surprise waiting at the end of the four original levels! And if you’re new to Magic Mayhem, brace yourself for a few attempts—trust us, it’s worth it!

Ready to harness the elemental forces and dive into the ultimate battle between good and evil?

Yes, download the game!

DOWNLOAD

No? Well, shucks, we don’t take no for an answer!

Meet the Meihem team:

Milko Kurki

Game Design, Programming, Sound design, Composing, Music Production

Akseli Ilkka

Game Design, Programming, Boss Fight design & mechanics

Aapo Nevamäki

Game Design, Programming, Enemy behavior, UI design

Leo Piirto

Game Design, Narrative Design, Character Design & Animation, VFX

Minna Mellajärvi

Game Design, Level design, VFX, UI design, Artist-of-all-trades

Simo Vainionpää

Game design, HUD/UI design, VFX design, Projectile design

Kseniia Merzliakova

Game Design, Level design, VFX design

December 15, 2023

GA Autumn 2023 – Gho-Bomb

Dive into the twisted charm of Gho-Bomb, a Bomberman-inspired game where cuteness meets chaos! Unleash mayhem with portals, and beware – fallen players become mischievous ghosts, haunting the living. Gho-Bomb is a quirky, strategic adventure where gory surprises and ghostly shenanigans await. Ready for a cute-yet-gory challenge? Bomb away in Gho-Bomb!

The idea

Our team embarked on a creative journey to craft a unique gaming experience. Picture a 3/4 top-down and a 32×32 pixel art universe that breathes life into a cute yet gory take on classic Bomberman-style gameplay.

Right from the start, our vision was clear – we aimed to seamlessly blend cuteness and horror. How did we achieve this? By infusing the game with cute visuals and a soothing pastel color palette, only to unleash progressively more gore as the game unfolds.

Our game boasts its own set of quirks: portals and the transformation of fallen players into mischievous ghosts capable of minor sabotaging. These twists add layers of strategic depth and unexpected surprises to the gameplay.

Gho-Bomb is designed for multiplayer fun, supporting up to four players locally using keypads and controllers. It’s not just a game; it’s a social experience where friends can gather, collaborate, and compete in the charmingly twisted world we’ve created.

The development process

To get a clearer picture of the project as a whole at the beginning, we created a mind map in Miro. The mind map visualized how the art and code came together, what assets were needed, and what the architecture and wireframe of the game would be like.

Programming

We started building the base game quickly after deciding on the game we set out to emulate in our project. After our team had come up with ideas for our game, to make it unique from other Bomberman-type games, we already had a solid base to build upon.

Pre-pre-pre-alpha version 0.0.0.1

We, our team’s two programmers, worked together for the majority of the project. We would meet up at school to code together. This way we knew about each other’s progress and it was easier to help and share work. In the end we accomplished what we wanted and we finished everything on time.

Arts

We delegated the creation of visual assets in such a way that it was easy for each artist to define their role. We had individual artists assigned to create the UI assets and character animations, for example. Each team member would keep track of their doing using Trello and Excel. This helped us to visualize the progress we were making.

We had weekly meetings where we would discuss the current state of the game and what were the main objectives of the week both on an individual and group level. Most of the meetings started off with a playtesting session. Our progress throughout the autumn semester was consistent. Cool!

Download from here:

https://pommitiimi.itch.io/gho-bomb

Team:

Konsta Karapalo – Programming

Heikki Venehsalo – Programming

Aada Kymäläinen – Character Design & Animation

Eerika Launis – UI & Background Art

Milja Karjalainen – Level Art & VFX

Vanessa Leikkari – Character Design, VFX, Animation & “Audio Guy”

December 11, 2023

GA Autum 2023 – Teuhon Rakennusyhtiö and Jumpnaut

Jumpnaut is a game about taking back your job from the evil hands of AI. This job you ask? A construction worker of a massive space elevator ofcourse.

One beautiful August day, our team (Teuhon Rakennusyhtiö oy) came about the idea from a list of classic games. A Donkey Kong/JumpKing mesh. At first, it was thought to be more JumpKing heavy, but later we thought “It’s not very fun now, innit?” So we switched gears and focused more on a fun platforming game rather than a rage game.
Unlike the original Donkey Kong, the players of Jumpnaut could pick up items, throw them and even catch them in midair! The game could also be played with friends. So long as there were USB sockets free, there would be a way to fit another friend into the game.

The development started off with a swift playable demo right off the bat (Just a bunch of jumping squares but hey, a start is a start.) After this, development stagnated a little. Team communication was lacking so the plan became less clear. Time was passing by.

After a serious meeting, our team smacked some sense into one another and started working harder, as time was running out

Eventually with some sisu and quick wit, we finished the project. Some features were cut but most stayed intact for the final release.

JUMPNAUT!

You can download the game from the following link:

https://github.com/Teuhon-Rakennusyhtio/Jumpnaut/releases/tag/v1.0

Jumpnaut is a product of Teuhon Rakennusyhtiö (Teuho Construction)

Members of the team:

Programmers:
Juho Teulahti
Alex Yli-Paavalniemi

Artists:
Sami Riihiaho
Eelis Simonen
Essi Miettinen
Anette Sillman

December 22, 2018

Necrox – Instance Games

A mage casts a dark ritual to gain power. A chaos demon granted him power but the mage must also spread chaos and take over the land and so the tale of Necrox begins. The classic mage elements are now stronger but there is also the power of chaos which allows the mage to summon skeletons to unleash powerful attacks.

Project Summary

We created the game Necrox. It is a single player match 3 game with RPG elements. The game was primarily built for Android devices but it also works on Apple iOS devices. The game was created inside of Unity. The project was kept on a private repository on Github. Github Desktop and Gitkraken were used along with the repository. The code was written using Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. Most of the art and animations were created using Adobe Photoshop.

Team members
Anthony Vanoostendorp: Technical Artist
Sami Sipari: Main Programmer
Nikolai Jonasson: Main Artist
Pauli Ondruska: Main Sound Designer
Tommi Pitkänen: Artist

The game is divided in two sections: the top section, where the combat between the main character and an enemy takes place and then the bottom half, where the match 3 game takes place. The player has to match tiles which activate the main character’s magic with different effects and the enemies attack at different intervals.

We completed our main goal, which was to create a complete game that can be further improved upon. Currently there are 15 levels that the player can complete. Each level has an enemy with its own set of combat base stats. There are 4 different types of tiles to try to get matches of 3 or more. The most common tiles are fire, which do damage to the enemy. Water and earth tiles are the next most common. Water heals the character and earth gives a stackable defense against the next enemy attack. Last are the chaos tiles which are harder to get because they are the least frequent but deal more damage than fire tiles.

The Game will be available on Google Play store but get the beta version here!

January 7, 2018January 7, 2018

Last Habitat: Deep Sea Defense

Nice Nine developer team presents
Last Habitat: Deep Sea Defense

About the game

Last Habitat: Deep Sea Defense is a sci-fi tower defense game set in a grim future where nuclear wars have left continents uninhabitable and the last remaining humans are forced to live in an underwater colony. Your mission as a player is to defend this colony from human-eating sea monsters by building towers. There are four different tower types with unique properties you can built alongside a canyon that the sea monsters use to attack the colony. Last Habitat features an in-game Wiki that holds useful information both about the towers at your disposal and the four distinct sea monsters that you will encounter on your mission to protect humanity and its last habitat.

Wiki that can be opened from the main menu and from the in-game pause menu.

The game has five levels to play through and each level offers more content and new challenges to overcome. As you make progress in the game and unlock new levels, you will gain access to use new tower types and encounter new sea monsters to defend against. The focus of the game still remains the same: protect the colony by building up defenses and survive the waves of monster attacks that will otherwise wipe out the colony and the entire human race.

Sneak peek from level 4: Lights In The Dark with open tower build menu.

Design process

The design process of the game started with a planning session where the team members narrowed down game ideas into one that could be created within a few months’ time frame. The game genre and idea was quickly chosen to be a sci-fi tower defense game done in pixel art, but initially the game was going to take place in space. To deviate from a popular choice of space as a game setting we moved our project to take place in the deep sea.

Our design process continued with research on tower defense games to understand what requirements, elements and features should the game have to be a decent one. From that point we started to design the tower and enemy types and thought about how many of them would we need in our game. We came to agreement that we should aim for four different types of both towers and enemies that there would be enough variety to the game. We managed to accomplish this and also created a unique tower type: Solar Link, a twin tower that creates a damaging ray between two towers. Similar type of towers are very rarely seen in any other tower defense games and we are proud of our Solar Link -tower type creation.

One built Solar Link twin tower in action and another one is being built.

Our team encountered a few problems on our design process. As we were working on to create an Android game, the user interface and head-up display elements went through several changes in order to make them large enough and more easily understandable for the player. We tried to give the player more feedback about their actions and also created an in-game Wiki to give the player more information on the tower and enemy types as opposed to filling up the screen space with constantly visible lists or multiple pop-ups. The most troublesome design flaw was the initial use of an energy popcap instead of more classic in-game currency. Late in the project we had to make the hard decision to scrap the energy popcap and replace it with in-game coin currency with very little time to enhance the gameplay experience for the players.

Towers can be managed from the tower menu that opens when tower has been tapped.

Last Habitat: Deep Sea Defense has five levels to play through. At first we had planned that the game should only have three basic levels and an endless level but after few playtests we noticed that three basic levels weren’t enough. We decided that the four first levels introduces player to all tower and enemy types and the last level is a challenge to test the player’s tactics. Unfortunately we don’t have the locking system yet implemented, but it will be in the published game version like the other last adjustments that we are currently working on. We were also forced to drop the endless level, as the replacement of the popcap solution with in-game currency also mixed up the games balance. We hope to still implement the endless level to the game before launching the game on Google Play Store in the first half of this year. On the launch we will also implement the achievements to the game as we will be using the Google Play Services to do it.

Playable versions are available here for Android and PC:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LFnbrSjAm1pZhJVD1ndi5GkQy-cyW2kA?usp=sharing

Nice Nine developer team

Programmers: Lauri Leponiemi & Ville Niemi
Graphic designers: Nea Ohvo, Piritta Vaarala & Jerkko Valta
Sound design by Lassi Kähärä