Nepguin

About the team:

Our team is composed of four first-year university students with moderate to no previous game development experience. Winter MelonJam 2023 is the first game jam that any of us have participated in! We all share an interest in coding, art, and video games. We decided to participate in a game jam together to learn and develop the skills needed to start developing games of our own.

The project that we created for this game jam is the first game of its genre that any of us have made.

Tools and assets used:

All art assets, including the title screen, menus, pixel sprites, tile map, animations, and all other in-game assets were designed from scratch and created by members of our team throughout the game jam. Sound effects and music used in the game are from external sources, which are listed and credited on the attached assets page.

Game description:

Nepguin is a two-player rogue-like survivor game, but is set in a charming winter landscape, where players control Neppy, a cute penguin, to try and defend themselves against angry snowmen enemies. However, Nepguin comes with a twist: Neppy has no weapons of their own, and must "charm" enemies to control them and turn the snowmen against each other!

Players will learn to collaborate with each other to navigate this challenging yet innovative gameplay mechanic. Coordination between the two players is key, as one player will be dodging while the other must focus on attacking. In addition, our shop system allows the player to purchase Charms, which boosts Neppy's stats in fun and unique ways. Join Nappy on his sometimes scary, but never dull journey to defeat the evil snowmen.

HOW TO PLAY:

One player uses WASD to move Neppy the penguin and dodge snowmen. The other uses IJKL to control the target. Once your Charm cooldown is done, aim the target at an enemy and press SPACE to “charm” the enemy.

When charming an enemy, you control the snowman! Use IJKL to move the enemy while the first player continues using WASD to move Neppy. The charmed snowman is indicated with hearts above its head, and this snowman will auto-attack nearby snowmen. Snowmen drop buttons when they are defeated. Move Neppy over the buttons to collect them.

After some time, your Charm Power will run out and only Neppy will be able to move. Keep going until all snowmen are defeated! Press SPACE again if you want to stop charming the snowman at any time.

After each wave of snowmen is cleared, the players choose 1 Charm from a total of 3 options to buy with the buttons they collected. These charms upgrade Neppy's various stats.

The game is lost if Neppy loses all their health. The game is won if all 10 waves are cleared successfully.