The Eyes of Cthulhu

Game Overview

A small survival game, based on “Devil Daggers” with Lovecraft influences.

Eyes of Cthulhu is a game I wanted to make after playing “Devil Daggers”. I loved the style and pacing of the game and wanted to see if I could emulate it in a different style, with some changes to gameplay, speed, and visuals.

THE BOOMSTICK

The player utilizes one powerful weapon, with two firing modes:

• Shotgun - fires a shower of pellets towards enemies, good for taking down groups/clusters

• Auto Laser - Automatic and able to shred enemies in lines, or hit precise weak points.

Each firing mode is controlled by either the left or right mouse buttons, keeping the switch of an attack at the fingertips of the player. Each firing mode is perfect for a certain type of conflict, and the player must use their shooting skills to properly asses and destroy all enemies in their path, all while watching their own back to survive.

Enemies

Just as in “Devil Daggers” I wanted to have tiers of basic enemies to attack the player, increasing their amount and “level” as the player progresses in survival time. These enemies are spawned from wads of flesh and tentacle, which can be killed, but will endlessly respawn after a short period of time.

The spawners can only be damaged by being hit in the glowing green eyeball in the center of their blobby mass, once killed they spew blood and chunks across the floor.

Movement

I wanted the game to have a similar movement style to something like iD Software’s Quake, with the ability to move at great speeds, gun at the center of the screen, the ability to strafe and control your movement in the air, and it all helps to tighten the gameplay, and make it feel fast, frantic, and visceral.

• Fast Movement Speed

• Smooth Strafing

• Air Control

• Retro Animations

My Role

Everything

This was a project that I worked on alone in my free time during the summer of 2019, I was able to learn about object pooling, wave spawning, and boid AI, all while getting to make juicy gore FX and punchy weapon feel. I also had testers so I could tune things like difficulty, visuals, and stylistic choices so that everything looked, felt, and worked in line with the vision I had for the game.

I had a blast making the game and it really serves as a fun little juicy distraction for anyone who wants to sit back and shoot enemies into meaty gibs for a couple of minutes!