Recollect

Description

A small robot reboots in a bleak world with a corrupted memory file. It travels the desolate lands in search for its lost memory drives. Where did it come from? Why was the city destroyed? As little robot regains its memory, it will begin to recollect and change.

In Depth Game Summary

Buddy the robot reboots with no knowledge of himself, his past, or his surroundings. He begins the game with no abilities or weapons. At the end of each level, after a boss fight or a puzzle is solved, Buddy regains not only memory data but is able to unlock abilities and weapons from within himself. As he continues through the game, he becomes increasingly lethal with a fully functional arsenal at his disposal. His memories begin to piece together his history as a peaceful helper robot caught up in a government plot, weaponized, and reprogrammed to crush the rebel uprising washing over the country. By the end of the game, he has regained his status as a weapon of mass destruction, along with the painful memories of his path there.

This Demo

To contextualize the demo submitted to this game jam, you are playing through an early level of the game (most likely level 3). Buddy has regained his laser sword and jet pack ability.

In this level, Buddy must combat a large metal arachnoid above the ground in order to regain one of his memory drives. We see Buddy's first memory of a green haired scientist booting him up for the first time, and reassuring him that he will go on to do great things.

The arachnoid hurls junk balls at Buddy, as well as the accidental coin! Buddy can take these coins to the store to buy health, attack ability, and jet fuel. In order to attach the arachnoid, Buddy can hit the junk balls back at it, or hit the arachnoid directly.

Use the left and right arrow keys to walk, W key to jump, right mouse click to engage jetpack. Simply jump into the coins or walk into them to obtain them. At the store, walk underneath the sword icon and jump to obtain fight ability and jet fuel.

Credits

Unity Game Design

Cory Muehlebach

Visual Assets (Pixel Art)

Megan Gilbertson: Buddy sprites, background, kiosk, laser sword, coin, scientist, reboot video, title screen

RoseRad: arachnoid boss, ground tiles, clouds, junk ball, memory drive

Shrimp: Buddy (early version)

Music and Sound FX

Darren Hayes: background music, sound FX

Freydell Johnson: Sound FX

Interesting Info

For the majority of our team, this was our very first game jam and BOY was there a learning curve! While we weren't working late into the night, we were getting up in the wee hours of the morning (aka 7am) on Saturday and Sunday to begin work.

You might notice three robots, including the shopkeeper, hanging out at the kiosk. These three robots were all initial versions of Buddy, our main protagonist.

All of the sound FX (jet pack, hit noises, etc.) were made a capella by our team!

Conclusion

This has been an absolutely wonderful experience. We plan to continue developing out Recollect, as we have become enthralled with the story. A Game Jam weekend for us was only enough to offer one level, but ideally, this game would have a play-through time of about 20 hours. We would aim for a blend of excellent story telling and engaging game play.

Snapshots from the process