Role
Software Used
Genre
Platform
Programmer, Designer, Artist
Unity, C#, Aseprite
SHMUP
PC
Game Overview
Lightspeed is a SHMUP with less of a focus on shooting. The player must fend off waves of enemies equipped with only a blaster and a dash move. The blaster is kept intentionally weak, to promote use of the dash. In order to keep the dashed charged, the player must confirm a kill on an enemy. This creates gameplay in which the player is encouraged to chain together powerful dashes and always stay on the move, with high chains granting the player with score multipliers and health buffs.
Production Overview
Lightspeed is a very important game to me, as it was the first full Unity game I developed during my degree. It was made over the course of around three weeks, and as such the scope was kept very small. Due to this small scope, I decided to base my game around a single, well polished mechanic. With a desire to create a more fast-paced feel, I came up with the idea to utilise a chain based dash mechanic to reach this goal.
Basing the game around this sole mechanic meant that a large portion of time could be devoted to fine-tuning the dash - adding effects and feedback, adjusting it's range, and coming up with ways to incentivise it's use. Playtesting revealed that this mechanic was extremely engaging for players, and meant that despite working as an individual I was able to create a very polished final product in a short period of time.
My Responsibilities
For this project I was the sole developer, and as such I was required to do all the work, including but not limited to:
Creating the player movement
Implementing the player's attacks (blaster, dash)
Implementing a system for chaining dashes
Creating pixel art sprites
Implementing three total enemies
A swarmer enemy who rushes to ram the player
A simple blaster enemy who hangs back and fires projectiles
A bomber enemy who sends out a spray of projectilesif the player detonates them
All UI work
Music and SFX
VFX
