Spellslingers is a 2-4 player 2D competitive multiplayer platforming game that I and two friends made as a student project.

This was our first foray into creating a full-fledged video game and we were quite pleased with the result. We designed it for PC using GameMaker Studio, targeting controllers as the optimal input method. We hoped to get back to it at some point, but instead we moved on to something new—Elements Tower Defense VR. My contribution included on icons, spell sprites, and animations. Here is a trailer of the game that I edited in After Effects for our final presentation (“Sequence” was our “team” name, the logo is of my design):

Players are first greeted with a character selection screen where they may choose how they look and what kind of spells they want to use. Each spell has a unique look and effect that fits within its element (fire, ice, and electricity); we spent a great deal of time play testing amongst ourselves and friends to properly balance each and every spell. In total there are nine spells, three for each respective element, each of which I designed in Photoshop.

We also incorporated a spell buffing system in which the leading player’s chosen elemental buff would kick in at a certain score threshold. This buff would effect all spells of its type (so the fire buff would effect all fire spells, the ice buff all ice effects, etc.) which forced players to be very strategic in their choices—they wouldn’t want to choose a buff that may effect many of their opponents’ spells.

Making Spellslingers was an extremely rewarding and fulfilling experience, and one that taught me a lot. I learned the ins-and-outs of GameMaker Studio, honed my Photoshop skills further, and refined my time management skills. As a team we adopted a scrum-like workflow consisting of weekly sprints to make sure that we completed everything we needed to by the end of the semester. We didn’t fully meet our own expectations—especially in regards to the background environment of our stage—but we learned our own limits and the importance of a reasonable project scope.