A remake of a failed project submitted to Brackeys Game Jam 2021.1 now being submitted to:

Bring Out Your Ghosts

A jam for abandoned or forgotten WIPs

I wouldn't say what's on this page is a WIP, it's as finished as I plan on making it. But if you would like to experience the original, crummy version that certainly fits the theme of this jam you can play it with this secret url:

https://fava-beans.itch.io/veraxrosa?secret=FJPQeMELX3Gqon1IFXujBnSSww

Story:

In this game, you will play as the fearsome mercenary named Vera and team up with her beloved companion Rosa to eliminate an army of skeletons. What's raising them from the dead? Evil. It's due to an influx of evil energy from the surrounding areas that they are rising from the dead. The people living nearby or a naughty lot but still worth saving for one reason: Money. Vera and Rosa are getting paid a hefty sum to rid them of their skeletons issue.  And there's only one way to do that, to purge the evil. To achieve this Rosa must perform a lengthy ritual at a shrine to channel holy energy that will counteract the evil. And again, it's lengthy. So while she does that Vera will have to fight off hundreds of skeletons until the ritual is over.

Controls:

|Point and Click| to Slash / Attack and interact with buttons

- ( You can slash only if the cursor is close enough to Vera for the red star to appear )-

|Press Q |or click the shop icon to access the shop

|Press P or ESC| to pause

Tutorial:

[ There is a tutorial in-game to explain the mechanics as well ]

You may prefer to read this though since this is slightly more detailed and presented more clearly.

I still recommend playing the tutorial if you want context to the game because it is also an intro.

The goal of the game is to fill a red meter at the top of the screen which represents the amount of purifying magic that Rosa has obtained. The skeletons will be defeated and the area will be cleansed of evil once it is full.

The number of enemies that spawn is determined by a blue meter underneath the red bar. As it depletes more and more enemies will spawn. To replenish this meter you must collect blue runes that will appear at random throughout the area. You can collect them either by moving through them or slashing them. Or you can forgo collecting them in favor of earning more loot. Do not let it completely run out though. Doing so will cause you to lose.

You can retrieve Rosa at the shrine by pressing E when you are near her. Press E again at the shrine to let her continue praying. The cleanse meter will only fill when she is praying and will slowly deplete while she is away so you cannot keep her with you forever. While Rosa is hovering around you the meter above your hearts will slowly fill. Once it is full you will gain one heart back. She will also shoot enemies.

You will earn money while defeating skeletons. The base value of coins is 4 and each upgrade will add 2 to that value. Stronger enemies will appear after enough repelling magic is depleted. They will drop more valuable loot. The value of loot dropped by enemies with 2 hit points is double the value of the basic coin. For enemies with 3 hit points, it is tripled. You can spend money in a shop accessed by pressing Q or clicking the shop icon. You can only access it when you have enough money to make a purchase. The cost of an upgrade will increase by 50 with each purchase.

My Notes:

I wanted to "refresh" this game from scratch because of all my projects this is the one I was most disappointed with.

The original project was created for Brackeys Game Jam 2021.1 around the time I was learning how to use Godot (you won't find it in the submissions now since I've later removed it). To create the game I followed a tutorial for simple wave-based mechinacs then built on top of that foundation a little. It was one of the roughest game jams I've participated in and then the final web build refused to load crucial particle effects for whatever reason. I soon stopped using Godot after that but not because of that failure, it was mostly due to me hating coding. Right now I'm using Gdevelop. There are major disadvantages to it when compared to Godot or any other more traditional engine but I enjoy using it more since it's 99% codeless.

The theme of the Brackeys Game Jam that year was "Stronger Together". I could only think of doing something romantic with that theme especially since it was around Valentine's Day. And that's why Vera and Rosa are lovebirds who are so enamored with each other that they feel stronger as a pair. Sounds sappy but that's the way I am. They're not as overpowered when fighting as one unit in the remake as they were in the original but hopefully, you still feel the connection between them.

The original jam ran for a week so that's about the amount of time I gave myself for this remake. Under the same constraints I wanted to see what I could make now with a couple more years of experience and a different engine. I think the difference is quite significant. I went a bit over a week though to polish things.

Credits:

All Music by Eric Matyas: https://soundimage.org/

I highly recommend his tracks. There are a few other resources on the site as well

Sound Effects from Zapsplat: https://www.zapsplat.com/

I got most of my sound effects from here because it's free