Game On

Game On

We worked with a group of secondary school pupils on the autism spectrum from St Brigid's College, Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to create this cross-genre post apocalyptic 2D adventure.
When we first met the students, we suggested they might want to make a game about their shared experiences of being on the Autism spectrum. To say we were met with a lack of enthusiasm would be an understatement. Their fantastic teacher explained that this time, when they got to leave the school environment and go to the nearby youth club, was time away from having to think about their Autism, or the fact they were ‘different’ from their peers.

What would you like to make a game about then?
A nuclear apocalypse. 
Mutants.
And so Game On was born.

The character design and graphics were a made using a mixture of paper sketches, models and Gamemaker’s pixel based sprite editor, brought together and realised by our artist.

The students broke into teams to work on individual levels, with each level designed by using a mixture of sketching out on paper and rapid paper prototyping.

The students learned about object based programming and using GameMaker drag n drop were able to layout and test their level designs, and they contributed many elements of the programming for the final game.

The vast majority of the sound effects were made and recorded by the students.

You can't lose this game. But you can try not to get hit!

Controls

To play the game:

a = left

d = right

w = up (when poss)

d = down (when poss)

space = jump (when poss)

enter = fire (when poss)