Light in the Dark
A challenging top-down shooter that puts players to the test as they face waves of increasingly lethal enemies. Can you survive the onslaught, or will you succumb to the enemy's hoard?
Light in the dark is a challenging, 2D shooter where the player must fight their way through an endless amount of enemies.
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Development
The development of Light in the Dark was a valuable learning experience for me as it was not only my first major game project that I worked on but also the first game I ever published online. I initially started this project with the intention of gaining a better understanding of the Unity game engine and was following a Udemy course on creating a 2d game taught by BlackthornProd. This was an excellent course that provided me with a strong understanding of the game engine and really inspired me. As a result, I decided to branch out from the course and do a lot of additional research on my own. It was in this research that I truly realized the vast potential of creativity in game development. In short, I discovered that with the right knowledge, skills, and hard work, virtually any concept can be brought to life in a game.
However, with this newfound knowledge came the challenge of managing the scope of my project, as it quickly began to expand, and feature creep started to set in. To illustrate this, at one point in time, I convinced myself that I was going to expand my game so that it would have a multiplayer mode where players would be able to compete in multiple minigames (This was all done before I even knew what an RPC function was). After a while, I eventually finished this passion project and despite my initial hesitation to release the game, mustered up the courage to do so and was relieved to have finally shared something that I invested a lot of time and effort into.
Inspiration
While working on this project, I took a lot of inspiration from BlackthornProd's cartoonish art style when creating/painting the characters in my game.
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[ Blackthornprod's art style ]
[ My interpretation ]
As I'm making this game page, I can clearly see that I have much to learn in order to replicate this cool, cartoonish art style seen in Blackthronprod's games.
Core Game Loop
I designed the game loop of Light in the dark to be as follows (It is similar to that of a wave-like endless survival game):
The loop begins with the player spawning into the world and insstanly being pursued by the first wave of enemies
The player then battles an onslaught of enemy waves. After each wave passes, the enemies either grow in scale or change in variiety as stronger entities become more present.
While fighting the enemies, the player will either get overwhelmed and be defeated or successfully defeat all of the enemy waves and emerge victorious
Once this end state is reached, the player returns back to the main menu where they have the choice to restart the game.
Primary Mechanic
Light in the Dark is a survival game where the player must fight powerful waves of enemies. Throughout the player's play-through, they will be able to purchase upgrades for themselves as they battle in order to potentially survive for a longer period of time. These abilities can be purchased using souls, an in-game currency system that is obtained every time the player kills a foe.
Enemies
Zombie
A mindless, uundead enemy that relentlessly chases the player down once spawned. Upon hitting the player, the zombie will deals x amount of damage every x seconds. With its only focus being to trail the player, this enemy can become a great threat if not dealt with swifty.
Skeleton
A brittle enemy that poses a threat to players at a distance. Upon spawning, the skeleton will begin to throw bones at the player, dealing x amount of damage on a successful impact. Although a threat at long range, this enemy is relatively harmless in close combat as it easily gets scared and flees if the player gets too close.
Ghost
A ghostly enemy that is immune to bullets due to its ability to pass through solid objects. When close enough to the player, It becomes vulnerable to the player's attacks and glows red. While individually only dealing 1 damage to the player every 1 second, several ghosts can stack on top of each other and deal a significant amount of damage.
Spider
A slow-moving enemy that can deal x amount of damage to the player upon impact. But beware, upon its defeat, two vengeful, fast-moving baby spiders will spawn and relentlessly pursue the player. These tiny terrors are capable of quickly latching onto the player and draining their health at a rate of 1 healthpoint per half second.
Abilities
Decrease Shot Time
Purchasing this ability decreases the fire rate of the player's weapon by 0.1 seconds. This upgrade can be purchased x times, with the cost increasing each time it is bought.
x2 Damage
Purchasing this ability modifies the player's weapon so that it fires two bullets for every shot taken. This upgrade can only be purchased once at a cost x souls.
+20 Health
Purchasing this ability heals the player by 20 health points. This upgrade can be purchased an infinite amount of times, with the cost increasing each time it is bought.
Control Scheme
Buttons
Actions
W
- Move forward
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A
- Strafe left
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S
- Move backward
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D
- Strafe Right
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Space
Open buy page
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Escape
Close buy page
Photos from Development
Looking through my computer's files, I discovered a collection of images and videos from the early development stages of Light in the Dark. I hope this section adds a unique perspective on the development journey of Light in the Dark.
