Rocket Runner is a mini-game where you play as a soldier trying to avoid missiles, bombs and solar flares falling from the sky. The longer you manage to survive the inevitable ending of the world the more points you'll gain.
Rocket Runner was made as a science project about the end of the world and the hazards of global warming during my time at Hagabergs Folkhögskola.
For the science project, the first criteria for the game were to have a theme with a heavy influence of an apocalyptic or world-ending state. The second criteria were to also include an element of environmental hazard related to the world today.
Environmental Hazard:
As for the environmental hazard I chose to add something resembling a solar flare. (I'm clearly not a 2D artist but I can sketch when there's need for it)
The end of the world:
To create the theme of an ending world I chose to go for an ongoing nuclear war with bombs and missiles raining from the sky.
To further push on this theme I designed a barren landscape in the background and chose the main character to be a soldier trying to survive.
Character:
The character is equipped with 3 lives, a dash, and the ability to walk along the horizontal field.
The dash is a high-risk high reward ability as it's hard to control but sometimes the only option to get out of harms way.
The player also accumulates score points based on the number of hazards they survived.
Missile:
The missile varies in speed but is in general the fastest of the hazards. It deals 1 damage and is the most difficult one to avoid.
Solar flare:
The solar flare varies in speed but is in general in the medium range of speed among the hazards. It deals 1 damage and is difficult to avoid, however not as difficult as the missile. In hindsight, I would like to remake this projectile so that it slows and maybe disables the player from using their dash ability.
Nuke:
The nuke is moving at a slower phase than the other hazards, making it easier to avoid but in turn, deals 2 damage instead of 1. As the character only has 3 hp the nuke tends to stress the player a lot which I feel invokes the apocalyptic feeling well.
Angle:
In one of my first iterations, I stumbled upon an issue where there were "safe zones" on the field. To resolve the issues I made it so that the missiles spawn with random angles to cover the whole field. This also inflicts more stress for the player as they are unaware of where the projectiles are coming from as well as how fast they are moving.
Rocket Runner is a fairly simple yet fun game and I'm glad the teacher at Hagabergs Folkhögskola was flexible enough to let me try on this project. I strongly believe that we all can learn more from making games than just the games themselves. This project was combined with a science report about solar flares and made for great interaction and presentation to the rest of the class.
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