Star Overhead
Game Jam Version
A short 2D platformer where you can manipulate time by playing the organ. I made it with two friends from college. It started as a game jam game, but we decided to keep working on it for a bit to finish it properly and add some polish so that we could upload it to Steam.
Steam Link
How the idea came about
The theme of the Jam was "Out of time", but we also had to use a special object, which ended up being an organ. We came up with the idea of a platformer where you could control time. The idea of using the organ to make these changes came from Zelda games, since it's not unusual to use an instrument to activate magic in those games. I mostly focused on coding the gameplay and level design. It was interesting trying to make something so fast, but having clear roles definetly helped. Also the fact that it was a 2D platformer also made things easier, since by then I already had experience with making 2D controllers. This doesn't mean there weren't some challenges. We had to figure out a whole system to make sure all objects could work with the time changing mechanics.
Making a save system and Steam Integration
After we decided to keep working on the game we decided to add new features, like the ability to save your progress. It was the first time I did something like that. Thankfully it wasn't as complicated as I thought, as long as it was just simple variables. I only needed to store what level the player was on and what they had collected, so it wasn't too much. Integrating Steam achievements into the game was also an interesting experience. The hardest part wasn't the coding, but rather all of the preparation, like installing the API and setting up the account properly. Thankfully I didn't have to do all of that alone. It was very surreal seeing Steam achievements pop up on a game I made.