CHROMA THRONE

Game Overview

Chroma Throne is a 2 player couch-competitive, 2.5D fighting game, where color is utilized for stealth, territory control, and special abilities.

Using their grappling hook, double jump, and color based special moves, combat possibilities become varied and strategic for the players who choose to dive deep into the mechanics, while the game remains accessible to those who want casual fighting fun.

The game in its current state is a 2.5D duel brawler. Players have 3 hits of health, a special charge meter, directional sword based combat, and projectiles. Each player had a specific color assigned to them in order to signify the “Color Kingdom” they were from, and we really wanted the idea of war to be conveyed through the color language and mechanics of the game. The game was won by meeting a point total, points could be earned by killing the opponent, capturing territory, and sitting on the “Chroma Throne”.This meant that each player could capture banners on the map, turning that area/zone to their own color. This gives them multiple advantages: control over the traps/hazards in that area, the ability to become invisivble to their opponent in their color, and the ability to charge their special meter.

The “Chroma Throne” is an item that grants its captor control over all of the territrory on the map, allowing players to quickly change the tide of battle. If a player sits on top of it, all territory becomes thiers, and their opponent must then fight to gain it back and win the battle.

Battles in the game then become a mix of territory capture, tense brawler combat, and trap avoidance/platforming. Player choice in combat was really important to us when designing the game and the blending of the different color based and combat mechanics really allows for some interesting play styles and strategies.

My Role

Game Design, Programming, VFX

Due to the small number of members on the team, and the lack of an official programmer, I was able to wear many hats on the team in terms of my role. This meant I could focus on my favorite aspects of many different elements of the game design process, and that was pretty rewarding in the end.

I, along with my teammate Dylan Alter, did all of the programming and game design for the entire project: writing design documents, coding scripts for the game, implementing features into the build. We spent a lot of time as a team and together making sure the game was something everyone was happy with. I mostly did the scripting for things like combat and player movement, and did a lot of work on the design of how combat would work/feel, especially in conjunction with the color mechanics. Having an experience with this much color and action needed to not be visually confusing, and it had to feel good to play, and these were what I prioritized in my design.

In addition to those roles, I also did all of the visual effects/particles for the game. I made sprites and sprite sheets and finely tuned the attacks and effects to make sure they met my high personal standards for “Juiciness”.

Postmortem