Piggy Bank Blaster

Piggy Bank Blaster was a lot of fun to make and it was a real challenge since I was working on two game jams on the same weekend, GMTK Jam and GM48. Both games had a completely different feel to them so I am glad I can simultaneously work on two contrasting concepts. I felt like I managed my time well going from concept to prototyping and making all the game assets. I spent the least time making the music and the most on graphics/animation.

My initial idea of the game was a piggy bank that shoots coins. Sacrificing the savings for reward, almost like a risk/reward system in shoot'em up form. I also had upgrades in mind which the player would have to buy and a final boss.

Things I had trouble with were ideas for enemies. What kind of enemies would a piggy bank have? That was tough... I also struggled with the setting. I initially wanted a city-scape but flying over the sea was graphically more feasible for my skill level. Also, I didn't know how to code more complex bullet patterns like waves and I completely forgot about repeating functions at the time.

Gameplay wise, the difficulty was extreme at first because I would keep running out of coins. I made the jetpack lizard appear later on and gave the fish less health. The robot always had more health because it was easy to dodge and didn't have any projectiles. I included a random balloon to drop more money to ease things up as well. I was thinking that the game would kind of pause after a minute and you could buy upgrades during that time.

Apart from that my favorite part of development was making the pixel art. I liked the coin designs and the piggy bank's design. When I have time I might finish polishing up this game. A lot of the comments mentioned a smaller hit box, which I always tend to forget when making the sprites. This was the first time I ever tried making a shoot'em up and really liked how it turned out. Thanks for playing and taking the time to read this! You can follow me on twitter @luckypixel777