Gameplay

Shoot your way through a synthwave world, but don't forget to keep your adrenaline up! Keep your neon heart beating at all costs and steal that gold! Your heart rate monitor is your health bar and combo meter. Being aggressive and attacking builds up your combo. Getting hit, and not being aggressive, decreases it. If it flatlines you lose a heart. Go into overdrive mode to enhance your weapons and get your blood pumping!

Controls

WASD: Move

Shift: Dash

Q: Toggle Overdrive

Space: Jump

RMB: Slow-Mo

LMB: Shoot

Mouse Scroll/Number Keys: Switch weapons

Theme Interpretation

Your heart must be kept on "overdrive" to stay alive. Playing aggressively makes your heart skip faster. Getting hit does the opposite. If your heartbeat drops to zero, you die.

You can go into overdrive mode by using the overdrive gauge. Weapons shoot differently in overdrive mode and are stronger.

Modifiers:

We followed all three modifiers for our entry

1. Introduce a resource limit for your player. 

The player has the overdrive gauge, slow-mo gauge and ammo as a resource limit.

2. Two Color Limit.

The game uses a color scheme of 2 colors.

3. Create a narrative arc inside your game. 

The player character goes through a narrative arc as you move through the level.

Tips

Utilize slow-mo. It recovers quickly. It can also increase the overdrive duration. 

Attacks in overdrive mode recover heartbeats faster. Utilize the unique weapon behavior during overdrive. Ex: The SMG's flamethrower will burn enemies and keep your heart beating as long as they're burning. Nothing quite like the pain of your enemies to make your heart skip faster.

Credits

B-Deshi Dev - Programming
Pavigna - Art, level design
Mr_MusicGuy - Music and SFX

Submitted for the 2023 Design Den Game Jam.