Axe of Perun

Bad Fish Studios Team RocketSaw

Team Members: • Grant Landreth• Andrew Gleeson

Synopsis

• Bogumil, Slavic warrior, seeks a great talisman which is hidden in the cold northern mountains called the Axe of Perun.

• While Bogumil is retrieving the axe-talisman, Perun, the god of thunder, has his wife kidnapped by the snake-god Veles.

• Veles, ruler of the underworld, steals her down to the depths of the underworld.

• Perun asks Bogumil to rescue her.

Comparable Products:Braid

• It is related to braid in its puzzle approach more than pure combat. The enemies are there to be more obstacles than actual opponents.

Prince of Persia

• Prince of Persia’s environment-focus is how we would like to design our levels. More level focused than item or enemy focused.

Castlevania

• The general theme of Castlevania is what we wish to emulate for our game’s style.

Claw

• Overall look and feel of the game, and its combat style.

Objectives

• Rescue the wife of Perun from Veles.• Acquire the Axe of Perun talisman• Solve puzzles/kill enemies• Defeat mini-bosses

Features

• Platforming-puzzle-solving• Dynamic text which writes as you progress

and may hold clues for the current puzzle• Tile engine with multiple levels• Variety of enemies• Multiple weapons• Save/Checkpoint stones to mark progress• Weather effects and time of day

Challenges

• Puzzles revolving around platforming, and defeating enemies/mini-bosses.

• Some enemies include:

Gameplay

Testing Methods

• Observation• Thinking Aloud• Survey/Questionnaire

Testing Results

• Spear-Vaulting is easy to spam– we made it so the player must be moving left or

right before they can vault• Ledge grabbing was too restrictive– we changed the way grabbing works so that the

player can choose to let go of a ledge rather than having to continue climbing up.

• Our Controls were a bit screwy

Lessons Learned

• CTRL should never be the ‘attack’ key• Player knockback is a good thing• Never trust GameMaker’s variables

Prototype Demonstration

Q & A