Bromancing the Stone

What began as a college assignment turned into a passion project, one that I'm still proud of. "Bromancing the Stone" was the working title and the name of the prototype that my team and I built.

The goal of the project was to design a game around the limits of online only 2 player co-op, working within the constraints to create an experience that at the time had not been done before. We drew inspiration from nostalgic games like the original Legend of Zelda on the NES.

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The game could only be played online via Xbox Live on XBLA, which was part of the challenge. We had to build our own proprietary 2D game engine, since we had specific mechanics we wanted to achieve. The overall gameplay is a top-down puzzle-adventurer focused on both players working together to solve puzzles. Each player had access to a few abilities using the Xbox 360 controllers:

Time stop (Right Trigger): An aura appears around the player and any non-player moving object in the field stops until the player releases. The player is immovable during time stop.

Attract/Repel (Left Bumper/Right Bumper): A force expands or contracts around the player, pushing or pulling certain objects away or toward the player. The player is immovable during attraction/repulsion.

Simple Context-based Interaction (A Button): If an object has a non-ability interaction and the player is next to it, a small A button will appear over the player's head to signify a potential interaction. Pressing it will enlarge the button, showing it is pressed, and the action will execute.

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The prototype was programmed in C# using the Microsoft XNA Framework. The majority of the art was done in Adobe Illustrator and is kept in vectors both for the ease of editing and the look-and-feel of the game.

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The team never got to finish the game as we decided to pursue other opportunities.

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Responsibilities: Game design, game art, character design, level design, collision detection, puzzle design.

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