Death Scale

Created for the Game Off 2023 game jam

GitHub repo here

Brief

The theme for this game jam was "scale." My friends and I tossed around some ideas, and we finally agreed on something of a fighting game, where the players would battle on a literal scale. For our aesthetic, we decided on an Egyptian motif - in Egyptian mythology, when a person dies, their heart is weighed by Anubis against the feather of Ma'at, the goddess of justice. If the deceased is found to have lived a good life, their heart will be light, and they will be allowed into the afterlife. If it is found wanting, their heart will be heavy, and their soul will be eaten by Ammit.

The dueling mechanic is not a literal interpretation, of course, but we felt it was well-suited nonetheless.

Mechanics

Players will start on opposing balances on a scale. Blocks, representing worldly misdeeds and all that kind of thing will pour down from above. Players must use their shot to knock the blocks from their side to keep themselves lighter than their opponent. It is definitely possible to land your blocks on the opposing platform as well.

The shot itself requires a certain range to get full power. This is intentional: it is essentially the only meaningful skill in the game, other than rudimentary platforming. I had intended to add two additional abilities: a point-blank AoE blast on a longer cooldown, and a shield of sorts, but I did not have enough time to do so.

There are power-ups that appear in the middle of the play area. There are three that can be selected from randomly - a power-up that makes your opponent's blocks heavier and larger, a power-up that speeds up your opponent's block spawn rate, and a power-up that slows down your block spawn rate. There is certainly a lot of room here to add additional power-ups, if one were so inclined.

I didn't have enough time to implement a single-player mode, so there is only a two-player local co-op. A solo player can get a feel for the gameplay loop by just focusing on their own side, but it is certainly less interesting.

The ridiculous animations are 100% intentional.

Credits

Programming: Trevor McDonald

Art: Trevor McDonald

Lead Game Design: Sam Sapp

Additional Game Design: Trevor McDonald

Tools

Game Engine: Godot 4.1

2D Art: Aseprite

3D Art: Blockbench

Attributions

Anubis Background generated using Fotor

Font is Rockboxcond12 found in the nb-pixel-font-bundle

Music and Sound Effects by Andrea Baroni