John Good
he/him
The theme for the 4-day (though I worked one day) GMTK 2025 game jam was 'Built to Scale'. I, along with an artist friend (I am not that talented) arrived on the idea of building your character to scale a tower.
We decided to go for something a bit silly and cute - a wizard cat fit the bill perfectly.
The player (the wizard cat) is constantly moving upwards, and as they travel, various obstacles fall towards them. They have to dodge the obstacles, while getting as high as possible up the tower. It is probably good to note that they can move up and down on the screen - movement is not contrained to 1 axis.
As they fly, they will come across powerups - which will present them with two possible stat improvements. One example would be the choice between a +5% to max mana, mana reacharge, and health, or a +3% to max health, and a new spell.
Speaking of spells, there are 4, and you choose 1 when you start. The options are a heal, a teleport, a black hole (sucks obstacles towards it), and a movementspeed buff.
When casting a spell, you can hold down the cast button to overcast it, which increases the mana cost, up to a certain point (the max overcast is another stat that can be increased). Once a spell is cast, it will also temporarily decrease your max mana, meaning you may gain a big speed bonus, but wont be able to cast as powerful of a black hole to clear your path.
In a surprise to absolutely no-one, this being a game jam means the game is slightly poorly balanced for late game - your screen will literally just be filled with obstacles, and fairly quickly. Furthermore, you can span the haste spell for a much greater cumulative effect than what you would get for overcasting.
