Awestruck

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🎴 Awestruck is a deckbuilding card game that synergizes words.

Play

Play the game:

Or download:

How to Play

  • Click the cards to build a chain and click “Execute”
  • Keep an eye on your energy and health
  • Defeat the enemies on the floor
  • Select rewards to upgrade your cards/stats

Credits

Background

This game was made for Unlikely Collaborators™ Game Jam, which the theme was consciousness and identity through awe and wonder - make awe playable!

We were inspired by Slay the Spire and made a deckbuilding card game where you combine words to create combos and synergies.

During ideation, we had ideas like a word detective puzzle, dungeon crawler inside a library, bugs could eat paper/clothing, and words can be fed to the bugs. However, we descoped them due to time.

Blue_Fox drew the art and came up with the wonderful bug designs:

  • Hatchling
    • Larvae that can tackle/shove/slam
  • Soldier
    • Termite with bite/crush ability
  • Archer
    • Beetle with a snout for acid spray/projectile attack
  • Reaver
    • Mantis moth that slices

She also drew 23 card images and the game logo.

AstreFone composed the music and created several of the sound effects.

His 2 tracks:

  1. Airwindow
    • Played during combat
  2. Unertainty
    • Played during the title/menu/reward scenes)

Both BGMs were ethereal and ambient given the pads and other experimental/otherworldly sounds.

I used KAPLAY as the game engine for this 2D web game. I bootstrapped the game from kaplay-template.

I created a prototype of the combat system with all text and no images and sounds before adding a reward system, level progression, and polish. I playtested the game many times to ensure the game balance felt right.

In the end, I created 8 floors and added a variety of mechanics to make the game interesting:

  • Player can add, upgrade, and remove cards from their deck
  • After beating the boss at floor 4, the player can add a relic that triggers every turn
  • I made sure there were enough modifier and payload cards for different strategies (aggro, defensive, etc.)

We had a lot of fun making this game so feel free to give it a play!