Immortals (DNF)

Immortals is (was supposed to be) a game about a cursed party of adventures who could not die.  They were inhabited by souls of the dead, and each death resulted in a soul bursting out of them and another taking it's place shortly after. Resurrecting the character with new stats and abilities each time.

Each time a character died in game they would be brought back to life a few turns later. When this happened they would be assigned a new class which served as a template for the new stats and abilities. The character's stats  would be re-rolled randomly weighted by level, class, and skill tree improvements. Actions available to them would also be randomly generated based on the class assigned and level.

Essentially each death gave the player a new character with new strengths and weaknesses. I wanted death not feel like a punishment, but like a new opportunity. At the same time if the player was randomly rolled an exceptional character there would be incentive to keep the character alive, which I planned to make difficult.

Since death and rebirth with new abilities was the core mechanic of this short game, I wanted characters to die frequently (since they would be reborn right away anyway)  and find fun ways to interact with the mechanic.

A also planned on an overworld exploration mechanic, a short storyline and dialogue, and much more.

Unfortunately, nearly none of this made into the game. This was my first Game Jam, and a big learning experience. I planned on implementing all of the gameplay systems, story/dialogue, and make all of the assets myself. I've made great projects from scratch in the past, but never really on a short deadline, and I very much underestimated the length of time it would take me to implement things.

I spent nearly all my time on the game systems. I built a Breadth First Search pathfinding algorithm from scratch. Since I wanted strict tile-based movement in 3D, and I had built 2D pathfinding algorithms in the past. I also built the turn based combat system and several other things related to the rebirth system. By the time I was done and worked out all the bugs with everything I was left with very little time to build any of the rest of the game.

I finally had to scramble to get something playable together to submit, opting to have a single scene of continuous combat until one side is completely obliterated. It's a hollow shell of what I had planned, but at least I have something to show.

The only gameplay that made it in:

- Very basic tactics combat system

- Characters "Resurrect"  the round after they die as a new class

- More and more enemies join the fight each round

So I present to you more of a demo than a game. This will not be my last Game Jam, but this one has taught me lessons about controlling the scope of a project for future jams.