Overview

My freshman year of college was simultaneously the most exciting time of my life and the most tumultuous; it was a time of discovery, both of myself and of the world around me. RIT has a very large Game Design and Development scene, which had always been a hobby of mine. My high school was located in a rural town that wasn't very "tech-y", so meeting people at college who were as passionate about the subject as I am was absolutely wonderful.

I would later join the RIT Game Dev Club, which hosts a Game Jam once a semester. For those unaware, a Game Jam is a competition in which teams or individuals develop video games from scratch within an alloted timespan, usually based around a given theme. During my first semester, the club's Game Jam was hosted on Halloween weekend - we had 48 hours to create a game themed around sacrifice.

I immediately began brainstorming ideas, and came up with Repentance. You play as a soul with a variety of abilities who must escape Heck with the goal of being reincarnated. I originally planned for the game to have nine levels (themed around the nine layers of Hell), but I only had time to implement three. The main gimmick of the game revolves around the checkpoint system; in order to activate checkpoints between the levels, you must make a deal with the devil, and give up one of your abilities permanently. You can choose to give up your ability to jump, run, shoot projectiles, and more... or, you can risk keeping your abilities, but returning to the beginning of the game should you perish. It was challenging to design levels that could be completed no matter what abilities you lost, but it was a satisfying problem to solve. I think that mechanic was a pretty awesome way to implement the sacrifice theme, successfully tying it into both the narrative and the gameplay.

Ultimately, Repentance was an honorable mention in the rewards ceremony. I was satisfied with the results, especially for a freshman who had not yet taken a game design course. I still hold this project in decently high regard - it represents the first time I really developed a game on my own from start to finish, and some ideas from development stick with me to this day. I would love to revisit this project in the future with all the skills I learned throughout college, but that's for another time.