Friday, January 28, 2022
By: Matthew Doucette

HiKōri 火氷 (FireIce) is my Global Game Jam 2022 entry .

Global Game Jam 2022 entry/prototype.

2022-JAN-30 UPDATE: Screenshots:

Screenshots from my presentation/entry build:

Hidden player fireball among ice crystal enemies.

Player fireball shooting fireball elements at ice crystal snake.

Player fireball demonstrating shots rebound off wall boundaries.

More action.

Lots of player firepower.

Global Game Jam 2022:

We joined the Jalloo Miramichi Global Game Jam 2022 site, which officially ran from January 28 - 30, 2022. I am creating HiKori. Jason is creating another game / game engine (TBA).

 

Naming Convention: What Does HiKōri 火氷 Mean?

HiKori means fire and ice.

HiKori in my game is a play on oppositional duality.

I constructed the name by taking English words (fire and ice), translating them into Japanese (火 and 氷), and ues the closest English pronunciationto the Japanese translation (Hi and Kōri).

Credit: The technique of using the closest English pronunciation was something one of our friends, Myke Wills, discovered while we were brainstorm what to call Kakeru (from "multiply"). We were in the midst of using an "English-to-Japanese-to-English" translation technique that I had discovered, but it was failing to produce anyting valuable. P.S. We were on our way to Global Game Jam 2020!

My idea is to stylize Hi / 火 as bright orange fire and Kōri / 氷 as blue ice, in the logo.

 

"Duality" Theme:

Global Game Jam 2022 theme is "duality."

Duality features:

• Opposing fire and ice elements:
• • Fire hurts ice -- 5x damage.
  • Ice hurts fire -- 5x damage.
  • Fire hurts fire -- 1x damage.
  • Ice hurts ice -- 1x damage.
• All game entities made of fire and ice elements:
• • player (matter)
  • enemies (matter)
  • player firepower (energy)
  • enemy firepower (energy)
  • stage environment (matter and energy)
• Duality themed entities:
• • Simple enemies made out of one element.
  • Complex enemies made out of both elements -- to varying complexities.
  • Same with enemy firepower.
  • Same with player firepower / weapons.
• Graphics:
• • Orange and blue (fire and ice) colour palette.
  • Pixel art.
  • Lowres:
  • • Low resolution.
    • 480x270 game screen (4x4 pixels if playing on a 1920x1080 screen).
    • Based on MonoGame Template work I used to prototype Kakeru.
• Etc.

 

Additional Features:

• Particle based
• • Snake-like enemies:
  • • All fire: ○○○○○○○○
    • All ice: ●●●●●●●●
    • Both: ○○○○●●●●
    • Both: ○●○●○●○●
    • Etc.
  • Snakes remain bonded as a single snake, when sections are destroyed. They do not break apart like Centipede. For example, if the player destroys all the ice sections of a snake -- ○●○●○●○● -- then the snake remains as a whole with the remaining fire elements -- ○○○○.
  • Similar to my work on Kakeru, NanoSnake, and brainstorming on Flowshot.

 

Technology:

• MonoGame / C# -- the cross-platform implementation of Microsoft XNA
• Proprietary game engine, to become known as the Kakeru engine, which is, as of the starting of the Global Game Jam, a MonoGame template that lets me access and draw sprites to a low resolution pixel, art mode. (It is not yet an engine and contains no actual game functionality).

 

What About Duality ZF?

Wait! We have already developed a duality-themed game, Duality ZF! So, we wanted to make sure a new duality-themed game did not step on the toes of our previous work. Someday, Duality ZF or one of its kind may see a release. Plus, it is not in good faith to use pre-exiting game development work in a game jam.

Specifically, to respect Duality ZF, HiKori will not make use of dual play. It may have a duality weapon -- a weapon with dual properties -- but it will be different than the duality firing style of the spread/laser duality in Duality ZF.

 

Inspiration:

• Centipede / Millipede -- particle-based enemies
• Raiden series -- massive firepower and oppositional spread/laser weapons
• Gradius -- options (sort of a particle-based player system)
• Thunder Force series -- action
• R-Type series -- particle-based enemies
• Ikaruga -- polarity
• Etc.

Only a littlle bit of inspiration comes from Ikaruga. However, I wish for HiKori to be less puzzle focused. I am not yet sure if there will be the ability for you to transition from one element to another (alike the polarity switching in Ikaruga). For the time being, I do not have a sense for invulnerability at all in the game. The idea is still a 1-hit kill for player ships, even thought enemies get hurt faster when using oppositional elements. Maybe this makes no sense. We'll see.

 

More to come...

 

 

About the Author: I am Matthew Doucette of Xona Games, an award-winning indie game studio that I founded with my twin brother. We make intensified arcade-style retro games. Our business, our games, our technology, and we as competitive gamers have won prestigious awards and received worldwide press. Our business has won $180,000 in contests. Our games have ranked from #1 in Canada to #1 in Japan, have become #1 best sellers in multiple countries, have won game contests, and have held 3 of the top 5 rated spots in Japan of all Xbox LIVE indie games. Our game engines have been awarded for technical excellence. And we, the developers, have placed #1 in competitive gaming competitions -- relating to the games we make. Read about our story, our awards, our games, and view our blog.