OVERview
Boss rush RPG style gamejam entry made in 48 hours where you play as a stomach and transform into the foods you eat to defeat greasy snacks.
Visual design
Designed the player character, bosses, food/item, UI and floor/background in a cartoonish digestive system aesthetic.
Junk Food Bosses
Foods + Items
Player Character + All Food Transformations
Game Design
Worked in collaboration with another designer and programmers to come up with a concept that fit the theme "you are what you eat". Our team took inspiration from retro fruit catching games where a player moves left and right to catch fruit in a basket and remixed it into a mechanic used to fight. Our game has players control a stomach character with 3 stomach "slots" that can fit a variety of falling foods and items. The player gains abilities based on the combination of items consumed from these "slots", which help them attack a set of 4 junk food bosses.
ui design
Since this was a gamejam entry, people would only be playing for 5-10 minutes total so I focused only on essentials: player health bar, boss health bar, and the stomach slots. Anything other than these basic elements would require an explanation, which would inconvenience players who are only expecting a short play session. Designed the UI elements to match the game's digestive system aesthetic.
First Draft UI featuring placement of the slots and player health bar
Final Draft UI
Player Health Bar and Stomach Slots
Boss Health Bar
sound design
Created an upbeat fighting theme featuring xylophones and echoing noises to emulate what a battle inside of a body might sound like.
Reflection
This was my first gamejam working in a new art style, which was a fun challenge. I believe that our team tackled the given prompt in a unique way. If I could go back I would have spent more time planning out the UI and creating indicators to make different in-game effects more clear. With more time I would have liked to design a comprehensive menu and pause screen as well as added more fruits and combinations for players to experiment with.