ARTIFACTS OF NAWIA

A GameJam+ submission in  category under the theme Retell a tale:

Download Artifacts of Nawia

Somewhere in space...

You are awakened from cryosleep and shakily get up, having cryogenic amnesia, a temporary memory condition.

The space station is dark; lights are either broken or the power generator is almost-depleted, making only enough power for oxygen production. 

Thankfully, you have a flashlight, which you use to get out of the room. On the right you see a locked cabinet and a fireman's axe. Wondering who and why would anyone need an axe in space, you make it to the room opposite of the cabinet.

Before you're able to truly get inside the room, you hear a skittering noise, making you shiver and alarming you to turn off your flashlight. In the dark, you see small red dots going around the room. Having a military background, you compose yourself enough to get closer and have the courage to check out what is ahead. 

The not-at-all-small hairy 8-legged creatures turn towards you the moment you turn on the flashlight, and with intense speed, they assault you. 

You barely manage to kill them barehanded. At least your space suit managed to block most attacks and save your life.

Before you can relax and assess what exactly killed you, your flashlight flickered through the entire fight. You get an ominous feeling as you hear glass breaking in the back of the room.

"Emergency! Specimen codename: Drekavatz containment unit malfunction, immediate evacuation advised."

Small lights flicker onto an emergency escape sign and you begin running like never before, not daring to turn around as you hear giant footsteps behind you and closing in.

Through one hallway and around the bend, you see an open door and run through it, closing it behind you using a button.

You turn around and are about to lose your mind as you see small red dots appearing before you, by the dozens.

At that inopportune moment, your flashlight flickers to life, revealing the swarm that's about to end your life...

Game info:

In-game controls:

ACTION	KEY
Move	W, S, A, D
Attack	Left mouse button
Flashlight	F
Sprint	E (held down+move)
Equip	E

Gameplay elements:

There are several mechanics that stand out in our game:

Flashlight - It works as one would expect and it contains batteries, which recharge by themselves.

Stamina  - Makes the player able to sprint while moving, having increased speed and able to evade the Harvesters (small spider-like enemies).

Boxes/chairs - These objects are not a part of the background, but the foreground, player being unable to just walk over them. They serve as a good shield against the enemies.

Basic attack - There are two variants to the basic attack: One being barehanded and the other equipping an axe. Barehanded attacks deal 1 damage to enemies and axe attacks do 5 damage, effectively one-shotting them.

Axe in the cabinet - The axe can be found in the cabinet in the second room. Although the plan was to lock it away behind an achievement from the game Dreadstone Keep, due to time constraints, we left the cabinet wide open so that the player may choose to either give it a go and decimate the harvesters or give themselves a challenge and beat the demo barehanded like a true badass. 

Enemy: Harvester

Small but very agile spider-like creatures that wander around looking for prey. They are sensitive to motion, so be aware not to approach them unprepared. While the player has enough health to withstand a large amount of attacks, he's not invincible. You will easily get killed if you stand in place and give them chance to leap onto you, especially if they group up on you. 

Game progression:

You spawn inside the first room and are able to move around with your flashlight on by default. You may explore the collision mechanics by moving the boxes or chairs around, getting a feel for the player movement and the sprint mechanic. 

When you are ready, you can proceed to the second room. As you have a door before you, you can just open them by pressing the corresponding key on your keyboard (G) and proceed to the room, where you can find the axe in the cabinet on the right. You may take it or you may leave it, the choice is entirely yours. There is a small note on the top right of the screen notifying that the legacy event has been unlocked by default because of aforementioned reasons.

The top corridor leads to a wider room that contains boxes and chairs and the only enemies you are supposed to kill in the demo. You may use the objects spread in the room to your advantage and hide behind them before Harvesters leap onto you. After killing all three, you will be given a few seconds before you hear glass breaking - the cryopod in the back of the room that contains the infamous specimen codenamed Drekavatz.

An Alert will be transmitted in obvious yellow text telling you to get out of there, the only logical choice being out of the room and into the corridor on the right that has few objects blocking your movement to add onto your adrenaline. If you have difficulties getting past them, you might want to try attacking them to remove them out of the way.

When you reach the end of the corridor behind the bend, you are presented with another door which you can open before you actually reach it with pressing the (H) key. When it opens, you are able to pass through them and close the door behind you by pressing (J) and zooming out the player camera at the same time. A few meters in the room after closing the door, you might rethink your decision as you find yourself ambushed in a room full of Harvesters which will hurriedly swarm you the moment they get too close. 

If you, by some miracle, survive the last swarm, you  have pretty much beat the demo and you get... nothing actually. At least nothing yet. By the time the incubation period of the GameJam+ is over, you might get to experience a solid level or two of Artifacts of Nawia where your decisions in the game influence your experience in other -connected games as well as other way around...

Bugs:

You are able to open and close doors more than once by repeatedly pressing the same button, making them go out of bounds of the level, scaring them away for good.

You are able to clip your basic attack through walls. Not sure why it doesn't cut your hands in the process, must be some bug.

Harvesters are able to leap outside the level likely due to alien teleportation DNA chain running through their veins.

Harvesters can also get stuck on boxes which might express their lack of intelligence or the developers lack of programming skill. 

Drekavatz doesn't leave the cryopod? Well, if you woke up from a couple thousand year sleep, comfily enveloped in warm liquid keeping you alive, would you step outside in the cold space station? (The demo doesn't actually contain the Drekavatz as an enemy with an AI, running behind you and  trying to catch you, but just hints at the importance of him shaping the game and the demo experience. It is planned to be a boss for the first level of the game though)

The Team:

TEAM LEAD: Andrija Stojković - Programmer, Game Design, Narrative 

Dušan Sekulić - Programmer

Luka Kosanić -  Programmer

Vuk Aranđelović - Programmer, 2D Artist

Uroš Lepojević - 2D Artist

Melina Beslać - 2D Artist

Aleksa Stojković - 2D Artist/Sound

Tijana Petrović - Narrative

Aleksandar Jovičić - Narrative