Axe of Perun

1. Axe of Perun Bad Fish Studios Team RocketSaw • Team Members: • Grant Landreth • Andrew Gleeson

2. Synopsis • Bogumil, Slavic warrior, seeks a great talisman which is hidden in the cold northern mountains called the Axe of Perun. • While Bogumil is retrieving the axe-talisman, Perun, the god of thunder, has his wife kidnapped by the snake-god Veles. • Veles, ruler of the underworld, steals her down to the depths of the underworld. • Perun asks Bogumil to rescue her.

3. Comparable Products:Braid • It is related to braid in its puzzle approach more than pure combat. The enemies are there to be more obstacles than actual opponents.

4. Prince of Persia • Prince of Persia’s environment-focus is how we would like to design our levels. More level focused than item or enemy focused.

5. Castlevania • The general theme of Castlevania is what we wish to emulate for our game’s style.

6. Objectives • Rescue the wife of Perun from Veles. • Acquire the Axe of Perun talisman • Solve puzzles/kill enemies • Defeat mini-bosses

7. Features • Platforming-puzzle-solving • Dynamic text which writes as you progress and may hold clues for the current puzzle • Tile engine with multiple levels • Variety of enemies • Multiple weapons • Save/Checkpoint stones to mark progress • Weather effects and time of day

8. Challenges • Puzzles revolving around platforming, and defeating enemies/mini-bosses. • Some enemies include:

9. Gameplay

10. Testing Methods • Observation • Thinking Aloud • Survey/Questionnaire

11. Testing Results • Spear-Vaulting is easy to spam • we made it so the player must be moving left or right before they can vault • Ledge grabbing was too restrictive • we changed the way grabbing works so that the player can choose to let go of a ledge rather than having to continue climbing up. • Our Controls were a bit screwy

12. Lessons Learned • CTRL should never be the ‘attack’ key • Player knockback is a good thing • Never trust GameMaker’s variables

13. Prototype Demonstration

14. Q & A