The Cursed Revolver
The Game
A top-down, twin-stick shooter set in a Wild West plunged into chaos by a cursed artifact. An unsuspecting cowboy becomes bound to the revolver and must fight his way through the West's demons to break free of it.
Main Concept
Every ability costs health. Player must think about their health while planning every single move in the game. When player leaves a decoy shadow behind, they would lose 2 bars of health while doing so.
Motivation
I am trying to challenge the use of health in games and make the player think more about their health compared to other shooter games. The game is designed to nudge the player to manage their health while in a fast-paced environment. While the player pays a health cost to use an ability, they also quickly gain health by killing enemies. This makes for a heart pumping core risk-reward game loop.
Why It Mattered to Me
This was the first time I led a team through the full arc of game development — not just design, but production, pipeline, and people. I developed and pitched the concept to roughly 200 students and professors, then carried it through a multi-stage elimination process to reach full development.
Lead Responsibilities
- Pitched and iterated on the game concept in front of a large student and faculty audience.
- Presented progress to stakeholders and industry professionals throughout the year.
- Built a team from scratch and set up the pipelines it ran on.
- Planned marketing, handled publishing, and worked with third-party vendors.
- Gave quality and design feedback to keep the vision consistent.
Development Responsibilities
- Built prototypes to support pitches.
- Worked on the gameplay team — core hero design, abilities, tuning, and polish.
- Owned overall game flow and progression.
- Assisted with procedural level generation design.