Wolfhunter: Pokemon-like RPG combat

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 12:57:34 UTC

wolfhunter

by pixegami

[Click to Play]

Wolfhunter is an where you play as a hunter facing off against a werewolf, in a Pokemon-like combat sequence.

You have magic spells and single-use items at your disposal, but the wolf is very powerful. The only way to kill it is to weaken it with your attacks, then finish it off with a silver-knife (which you only have one shot at).

It is made with PICO-8, and can be played directly in your browser here.

> The motif and design of the game was based on the word "Moonshot", which was the theme of GitHub's GameOff 2020 game jam.

Gameplay

I set out to make a game loop that felt similar to the combat in Pokemon Red/Blue, which was the most popular title on the original Nintendo Gameboy.

The characters stand opposite each other, and take turns to fight. There's a bunch of other mechanics too, like strengths/weaknesses, status effects, and switching characters.

For Wolfhunter, I copied the scene layout, the turn based fighting, and the status effects. I didn't have a chance to implement other aspects of Pokemon — so instead I doubled down on the mechanics I did implement.

I've written up a more detailed technical post in my blog here. Source code is available on GitHub.

pixegami [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Wolfhunter: Pokemon-like RPG combat

Gameplay