An award winning metroidvania game set in a biopunk chinatown.
Take on the role of a strong-willed woman determined to challenge the tyranny of the mob leader Jiaolong and free Chinatown from their oppressor in this 3D side scroller action adventure, Metroidvania. Discover forgotten secrets and powerful weapons that will help you traverse the treacherous streets, as you set off on a dangerous mission to fight the mutants, monsters, and other enemies hiding within.
50000+
added to steam library
2000+
Unique players
A 3d side scrolling metroid-vania game
I joined this project November 2022 during the
pre-production phase as an LD.
together with 29 peers, I worked on making this game a reality and publishing it on steam.
My process:
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In the first stage of the project:
I played different metroidvania games to find good references for the project. The reference games we ended up using were: Dead cells, Metroid Prime, Metroid Fusion, Guacamelee, F.I.S.T. and trinity fusion.
For the level layout we decided to use a hub and spoke design for the macro overview of the level, not too dissimilar from the one seen in Metroid Fusion. And took Metroid prime, Guecamelee and trinity fusion as inspiration for individual scenes within the level.
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Throughout the project there were many changes to the 3Cs, this was less than ideal for LD as we had to cut and redesign content. Where our combat used to be melee only, it was now ranged, causing drastic changes to the level design.
I worked on 3 sections of the level, 1 of these sections was cut entirely. For the other 2 I mostly worked on iterating and adjusting to new features or features that had been cut.
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During the last stages of the project, I focused more on QA testing and fixing bugs. I also worked on focus testing and gathering feedback from lecturers. This helped us prioritize our scope and improved the level of polish of the game we were able to achieve
Early development
I made blockouts of scenes I had sketched in a gym-level. I also used the gym level to experiment with different LD-Ingredients, using them in interesting ways to create interesting experiences.
the scene on the right was made according to a sketch I made a week earlier. The player experience of this scene was surprise: the player would be thrown in the deep, but not in a harmful manner. while falling down the player sees their next objective: getting out of this pit, the players eyes are guided toward this goal by strategic placement of lights.
on the side, I worked on making a shader that would make scenes into ascii art, during this phase of development the theme of the game was more technological. The idea behind this shader was that whenever the player got hit, their screen turned into ascii art for a second. And whenever the player was low health, the sides of their screen would turn into ascii art, with the middle looking like usual. Due to a change in theme, this prototype was never finished.
This page is still under construction
for more information feel free to contact me about this project:
in the meanwhile, here are some images from different stages of the development of this project
