SHOOT N’ SHRINK
Game Development 08/2024
Role: Game Design, Game Art, Visual & UI Design
Blender, Adobe PS, Unity, Git
Shoot and shrink your way through your enemies in this high paced top down shooter! Contribution for the GMTK Gamejam. Submitted on itch.io, 1 hour, 57 minutes before the deadline. Gameplay: break your enemies plasma shields and use your shrink gun to shrink them down to size so you can eat them.
Goal
The GMTK Game Jam is one of the largest game jams worldwide, bringing together thousands of developers to create a game within a strict 96-hour timeframe. The 2024 theme, “BUILT TO SCALE” challenged 32000 participants to explore scale in creative ways.
We were a team of three: I was responsible for UI design and asset creation in Blender, as well as integrating, refining and animating the assets within the engine. Superschnizel was in charge of programming, while Hynozia handled the sound design and soundtrack. The project was developed in Unity, with version control managed via Git on a private server.
Our initial concept focused on swarm behavior. We aimed to design a system of small, hand-animated microorganism-like entities – similar to amoebae – that would move as a clustered group through space. We called them Nanobots. The idea was to let players push, pull, and guide these organisms to interact with the environment, potentially solving puzzles or engaging in destruction-based gameplay. A clustering algorithm was planned to drive this emergent behavior.
Research
While the technical exploration progressed, the concept revealed critical UX issues early on. The visual result lacked clarity, and the interaction model failed to produce engaging or intuitive gameplay. More importantly, we were unable to define a satisfying core loop, which is essential to creating an engaging game.
At the halfway point (after ~48 hours), I initiated a strategic pivot. With limited time remaining, we shifted our focus from innovation to clarity, playability, and completion. Our new goal became: deliver a small, coherent, and polished experience.
Insight: Difficult situations require us to adapt our strategy. Developing this ability is an ongoing learning process for the team.
Design Approach
We transitioned to a straightforward top-down shooter in 2½D. In this redesigned concept, the player controls a mysterious character shrinking enemies in an abandoned spaceship.
From a UX/UI perspective, this pivot allowed us to:
- Establish a clear gameplay loop (break enemy’s plasma shield -> shrink enemy -> eat enemy)
- Improve visual readability and player feedback
- Reduce cognitive load and ambiguity in interactions
- Focus on responsive controls and satisfying moment-to-moment gameplay
Outcome
Out of 7527 submitted games, ours ranked: Overall #3689 and #3200 in the Enjoyment criteria (based on 21 ratings).
While not at the top, the result reflects a successful recovery from an initially over-scoped concept to an exciting, playable experience. The project demonstrates pragmatic decision-making and a user-centered approach under extreme time constraints.
A standout moment was the integration of the soundtrack by Hynozia, which significantly enhanced the overall user experience – elevating emotional engagement beyond expectations.
Play the game on PC with a mouse on itch.io!
-> Imprint