itch.io

Oh wow, you're right, thanks! I'll put the new version up now.

Here's where I start my journey to the creation of my first fully featured game. I've created an asteroids clone and a simple mini-game before but this is the first actual game I'm creating. I'm aware of the pitfalls that can hit new developers, like delving in too deep, so I'm sticking with a simple graphics style, partly because I'm no artist. They're cute little characters though. The controls are a similar to those of Binding of Isaac, and though I didn't plan for this, I'm now aware if I just make an isometric shmup it will become boring very quickly. For that reason I've come up with the idea of a two-class system in which you can alternate between a long-ranged wizard with a lower DPS and a close ranged knight with a higher DPS. A risk reward sort of thing if you will. However, certain enemies will be easier to kill with each class, and since changing class will take perhaps a few moments, tactics will be encouraged. That's what I hope at least. The game is still in the design stage but I've created the basic movement mechanics for the player, if only for the wizard class. I'm making this in game maker but coding everything, learning gradually as I go. I've created a short video to demonstrate what of the actual game has been made (and it can be viewed here, as well as a screenshot here), but at day two, anything can change. I'm going to type up some plans and put them in the next update as well.

It has a name! The name sWitch came from the switching mechanic that the game will be centred around, and the fact both classes start with the letter 'w' (wizard and warrior). I've made two large additions to what has previously been shown, along with some smaller changes. These are the new enemy and the ability to change between classes. The new enemy, the 'demon', is a fast melee enemy who takes little damage from the wizard's bolts but is killed extremely quickly by the slow moving warrior. I've tried some changes like screen-shake on the death of enemies, but this still needs work. My main task now is to actually design a game! I think it wouldn't be such a bad idea to create a prototype level in order to figure out how each level will encourage the use of the key switching mechanic. I'm not that bothered about the look of the game at the moment but gamefeel is something I'm very concerned about and acting on. Though I have some plans, I shan't tell them since it's possible they won't be implemented by the next devlog. Either way, I'm going to make this test level as fun to play as possible through how it feels and how the actual world is designed. There's a new video and screenshot too!

Thanka for the feedback! I'll take what you said into consideration and try to improve the game.