Paint the town green
This game is loosely based on the story of Helios, the Roman god who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky. Your role is to drag the sun, bringing light to the world without burning the ground.
I designed and coded this game in Pico 8 using Lua commands.
Game Breakdown
After the game begins, the ground is flat and the sky is clear, giving space for the player to experiment with the controls, moving up and down - which naturally introduces the color changes to the ground based on player input.
Next, a prompt appears to "Press X for a boost", which allows the chariot to move more quickly. This can be helpful or harmful, as the boost allows for quick changes but also makes the chariot more uncontrollable if it's maintained. A cloud then appears on the screen, which is a small element that provides resistance to the sun shining through to the ground.
Once these few elements are introduced, the terrain is generated, which varies on each play through.
Process
The game was produced in a studio setting, by making iterations over the span of 10 weeks. I initially drew inspiration from games like Robot Unicorn Attack and Flappy Bird, which led me to create my own endless-level style game.
Some of the changes I want to highlight from the first version to the last include: changing the ground color based on the relative distance from the terrain, generating varying terrain for each play through, creating logic for cloud interactions, and moving to a more abstract aesthetic.
Future Work
Future changes I'd like to implement are producing a tutorial section that only appears on the players first play-through, and further animations indicating the players effects on the ground, such as fire or ice based on the distance from the sun. Hope you enjoy the game!