Play Arm & a Leg for Windows!

So going into this, I had no idea what I was going to do with this theme. I jotted down some ideas on a white board and picked the one I hated the least. I like to paper prototype things, so I brought out the sticky notes

I originally was considering having a human main character, but I decided to go for robots instead. While I'm not opposed to gore, I wanted to be able to share this game with my co-workers and thought it was best to keep things....not bloody. Robots seemed like a safe way to play with the idea.

Once I felt good about it, I got started designing the main character. I started pretty generic and had some fun with it

This felt too generic, and not as cute as I would like. I played with the colors and shaped for a while until I came to a design I liked. I then animated 16 versions of this bot based on what parts the user sold. That definitely freaked me out when I realized just how much animation I would need to do to pull this off.

_Here is a little dance I accidentally animated

After that came the merchant and the enemy bots. The little scavenger bots are honestly my favorite and at this point I was super motivated to keep going (Albeit worried as hell that I bit off more than I could chew)

Looking to my original post-it doodles, I created a shop menu that both allowed the player to buy/sell parts for their bot, as well as give immediate feedback on what that choice means (something I struggled with early as a developer)

The combat was the hardest part for me, as I typically avoid making games that rely on combat. But it just felt like the natural direction for the game, and I just loved my little stab-bots so much I knew it would work out in the end

I'm really happy with what I was able to accomplish and I can't wait for the next one!