Blow Up The Moon!

Blow Up The Moon! is a 2D sidescroller set on Earth’s moon that has been overrun with aliens.

The player takes on the role of a brave astronaut who has volunteered themselves to sacrifice their life in order to save humanity. They must venture throughout lunar caves to reach the bomb site and detonate it, killing all of the hostile aliens on the planet.

This game was made as a part of my coursework for a module at University. I used Unity to create this game. It took me a little under a month to complete it. The brief was open ended and let me create whatever I wanted as long as it was 2D, had at least 3 levels and played for around 5 minutes. Having previous experience with making a 2D sidescroller (Space Fish in Space) helped but I wanted to make sure that I didn't just copy that game's mechanics. One of the main things I wanted players to be able to do was have two methods of attack, shooting and throwing dynamite. I also wanted the enemies to be more than just mindless AI patrolling a certain route or standing still shooting so I made them control platforms, indicated by a purple glow. This would force the player to decide if keeping the aliens alive might be more useful to them since they could be controlling a platform that lets them reach a certain area.

As for the art direction, I took a similar approach as to how I handed SFiS, I wanted to create all of my own assets and pixel art seemed to be the most obvious choice since it is easier and allowed me to focus more on the gameplay and level design.