Lead Designer/Programmer on a Freshman-year game at DigiPen / solo project / multiplayer / Created in DigiPen’s FunEditor

Reversal is a strategic 2d shooter with unique color switching mechanics where 2 players compete against each other by trying to destroy an opponent’s reactor while protecting their own.

Designed and implemented gameplay. The basics of Reversal are simple – each player controls a ship that can shoot bullets at the opponent’s reactor. There’s ammo and bomb powerups on the map. I wanted to shake things up and make the gameplay hectic, with players scrambling for powerups and finding good positions to shoot at the opponent’s reactor. To make it more exciting to watch the game, the playing field would need to be dynamic. That’s where the color mechanic comes in – the playing arena is split into 2 colors – black and white. Each player can cloak their ship to the color of the opponent’s field for easy infiltration. When they shoot or place bombs, they immediately uncloak creating a “whoa!” moment. They can also touch a powerup that renders the entire field their cloaked ship’s color, making them invisible on the entire map. Gameplay is fast-paced and fun to watch, with players balancing defending their own reactor vs. going into enemy territory to do some damage of their own.

The game was programmed by me using ProjectFun, DigiPen’s game building software. I scripted input, object pathing, and game logic.

Playtested and iterated. Because Reversal is a 2-player competitive game, playtesting was a must. I asked many people to play the game – both casual and hardcore gamers  and took notes. Using their feedback, I iterated and proceeded to balance out stats like ammo count, powerup availability and placement, ship speed and reactor health. Without playtesting, the game would not have turned out to be as balanced or fun.