As part of the first-year module Introductory Games Studies, I had to develop a game to meet a brief we were given with a few key goals. The brief was for a classic arcade shooter game with horizontal scrolling, 4 styles of enemies with specified stats, 5 types of bonus items, 3 levels, music and sfx, and a start screen. There were some suggested themes but no restrictions.

 

For mine I chose an underwater theme, making the player a submarine and the enemies fish infected by pollution. The first type on enemy was small and fast but weak, moving in groups of 5. The second was bigger and a bit tougher, moving on groups of 3. The third was much tougher and travelled alone. The final enemy type did not attack and dropped a powerup on defeat. At the end of the final level was a boss, with a specific attack pattern you had to learn to be able to avoid damage. All the levels were designed to have a steadily increasing difficulty, combining different schools of fish to make them harder to avoid and more dangerous. This was a very useful first project and lead to a piece of work I'm still proud of, although I can see where I would like to tighten features and add polish.