Today, I submitted my game to the MinnHax game jam. It’s a jam hosted by the wonderful MinnMax community, a place for friends, games, and getting better. The theme is Getting Better, it’s wide enough to accommodate all kinds of ideas, yet focused enough to center a mechanic upon.

In addition to the theme, I want to create a game that captures the ideas of friendship and alliance, so I narrowed the theme into “getting better together.” With that in mind, I decided to create a roguelike that incorporates that aspect.

I chose the roguelike genre because I already had experience making one (my first game, Abyss, was a roguelike). Also, roguelikes are systemic games: once you set up a good foundation, it’s easier to add new levels and challenges. This time, I challenged myself by moving from a 2-bit art style into something that’s more colorful. Also, instead of the usual roguelike combat, I made the enemies move in a rhythmic manner (a la Crypt of the Necrodancer).

To incorporate the theme, I added the Recruit mechanic. This allows the player to recruit foes and turn them into allies once defeated. There is an incentive to recruit enemies: you have more variety in your attacks, and you increase your damage when you recruit enemies of the same class. The game gets tougher in the latter levels, and it becomes necessary to increase your party to cover all bases.

I hope you enjoy this game. I’d definitely appreciate if you leave a review and rating if you enjoyed it (I’m low-key building my game dev portfolio so every comment means a lot). Unfortunately, I won’t have much time to add some of the features I want because of work, so I’ll still add new mechanics post-jam. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

Lj