Mansion of the Dancing Cult

This project was created for my B1 Personal Progression assessment. It is a wave-based shooter where you defend yourself against cultists and then capture and sell their ghosts for profit. It features two gameplay modes, an array of weapons and an upgrade system.

Game Demo

Project Breakdown

Wave-based ghost-catching gameplay.

"The Mansion of the Dancing Cult" is a Luigi's Mansion inspired wave-based shooter. You must defend a massive jar container a powerful ghost whilst also capturing ghosts to get points for more weapons or upgrades.

Features

The game features two basic kinds of ghost;

One is red and will move towards you and attack, the other is green and will run away from you.

The third kind of ghost is special; The Poltergeist. The Poltergeist will find the nearest object it can hide in and run towards it, making the player have to interact with the object before attacking it.

The game also has two types of physical enemies, one which runs to you to melee attack you, and the other that attacks you with ranged weapons

The "Slam Attack" can be used to gain height and momentum, as well as being used to defeat enemies

The main wave shooter gameplay switches between gun combat with physical enemies, to Luigi's Mansion inspired ghost hunting gameplay between each round.

As you play the game you accumulate points that can then be used to buy upgrades, new guns or health and ammo.

One of the upgrades is the "Ghost Tracker"; a small arrow that when bought appears in front of you and points to a ghost that's still alive in the level.

Skills

Project Management

As part of this project I was tasked with a lot of duties. I was personally responsible for all of the programming, as well as the majority of the 3D models and sound design. This project taught me a lot about how to prioritise tasks and how to organise a project effectively.

Time Management

The deadline for this project was especially strict, meaning that I had to compromise on a lot of the features I wanted to include to ensure a complete final project and experience. I also had to stagger my workload to avoid burnout and scope creep.

Programming

For this project I was the lead and only programmer. I was in charge of programming gameplay, AI, sound, combat as well as any other assets that needed code.