Anticlimax

Anticlimax is an action puzzle platformer based on current events, such as anthropogenic climate change, in which the player's ecological decisions have observable consequences on the game's environment.

Max is a typical millennial that enjoys iced coffee and sees the world with rose-tinted glasses (literally). His naiveté and ingenuity allow him to observe things differently, and to make useful tools from pretty much any trash lying around. But, pretty soon, his ideological bubble will burst and he'll wake up to a quite anticlimactic reality. Our reality.

The Trash Turtle Island is inspired by the fantastic legends of the giant turtle isles, and the plastic islands that can be found all across our oceans. The whole game concept started with the popular discussion that plastic straws and other disposables are very deadly to turtles and other sea creatures.

The first playable prototype was presented back in July 2020, and showcases the sandbox chemistry system that serves as a base for the materials' properties and interactions. On a future implementation, these chemical, physical, and ecological properties would be passed on to gameplay tools by recycling them to invent new devices. The character would then use these inventions and abilities to navigate platforms and solve puzzles in order to advance through the game, taking into consideration the balance between sustainability and effectiveness, eventually leading the world into a thriving ecotopia or a polluted dystopia.

This project was developed throughout the first year of the Game Design course, where I had to create every single piece that is necessary to produce a game prototype, from concept art, to asset design, animations, programming, and even marketing and pitching tools.