Assets and Comparison to Concept

Assets

Font "8-bit HUD" sourced from DaFont.com. Created by Seba Perez. https://www.dafont.com/8-bit-hud.font

Comparison to Concept

Overall, the final game is very close to the initial vision of the game I had in my concept document. Many of the features I listed in the initial document, including the custom-designed art assets and multiple weapons and enemies, were implemented in a way. That being said, some minor changes were made to the game, either due to time constraints or simply helping to make the game feel better.

• The initial concept document stated that each playthrough would last for three minutes, however the final game lasts for just two minutes instead. While testing the game myself I found that three minutes was simply too long, and would often cause the player to become overwhelmed with enemies if they weren't especially diligent with taking them out - two minutes was simply much better in this regard.
• The game's third level, the abandoned house, was scrapped. While this was partially due to time constraints (I couldn't simply recolour the lake tileset like I did for the other two levels), I also realised that the low light gimmick likely wouldn't have been very fun. If enemies didn't light up, then the player would be swarmed by enemies they never saw coming. If enemies did light up though, the gimmick wouldn't have any notable impact on gameplay, and would ultimately end up feeling somewhat superfluous.
• The original plan for the hell level was that the player would only have 1 health and would need to completely avoid taking damage in order to win, but I found this to be unnecessarily challenging during testing, especially considering the game would now only have three levels instead of four. Instead, the player has 50 health (half the usual value), and the level has a special boss who will instantly kill the player upon touching them.