📱 The Shadow Within

A confusing puzzle platformer for mobile.


Summary

Role: Sole Developer
Team Size: 1
Engie: Game Maker Studio 1.4 (GML)
Platforms: Android
Educational Institute: Cambridge Regional College (Year 2)

Download (Android): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SBkpq53o5r5tysNO9IkNIZrrgvUZZF4Z/view?usp=sharing


A puzzle based platform which challenges you to choose how you solve each level. The levels get increasingly more complex and teasing with several enemies and paths to choose. Want to be a completionist? Find all the stars in the 28 levels to complete the game fully, or just find weird and wacky ways to complete levels to waste your time.

I made this game totally by myself, with a little lecturer help when publishing it to implement the acheivements and leaderboards where needed as well as testing the game before release. This game taught me a lot about the process when it game to making games and only inspired me to go further into the feild and consider it as a full time career.


The Game Jam Version

This was the first game I ever made. My birthday was actually on the second day of this jam too. This was my entry into the Nerd Rage 2014 Jam where both first and second years stayed in college overnight in a 30 hour gamejam. The theme was discombobulate (to confuse), which turned out to be great as days before the jam I had accidently made a game with two players and forgot to isolate their controls. This turned into the basis for this jam game. At the time I also had recently discovered Lindsey Stirling on YouTube and really liked her music, one of which was called shadows. This turned into the idea behind the 2 characters, one was going to be a shadow that followed your every move.

I was shocked at how well I did in this jam, granted by the end of it I wasn’t feeling great, but thats to be expected when you stay up for over 30 hours. In the end I won 4 awards out of a possible 12/13 I think, managing to get the most awards of any game and getting best overall game. To put it mildly, this is what hooked me into indie games development as a possible career.