Our goal was to create a 2d platformer about an astronaut who fell from its spaceship and needs to get to safety. As the astronaut, you jump between clouds, encountering enemy aliens along the way.
I am the artist and producer while Zach is the programmer and designer. As the artist, I designed all the assets in the game, including the astronaut, alien, and clouds. I made sure to sketch out some ideas beforehand. My partner and I settled on using a grayscale palette due to the short amount of time we have. Along with creating these sprites, I made sure to animate all of them except for the clouds. The animations for the astronaut include idle, run, and jump; animations for the alien include idle and attack.
Our game still needs some work! Playtesters suggested that we add a splash of color. The aliens, especially, look plain so upping the contrast might help. They would like for us to include collectibles and provide a clear goal at the end. Because I have not made an astronaut attack sprite, aliens are just shoved off the clouds. Sometimes the astronaut spins in circles as it falls. I’m not sure if this was an accident, but playtesters liked this!
I am going to use the next week to talk to my programmer and discuss changes to the design. I would like to keep the astronaut sprite and animations, along with the cloud assets. As for art changes, I will create a gradient background and add a bit of color to the aliens so they won’t look so plain. Nat provided a great tutorial for an infinite scrolling background, so that is something we might use!