Welcome to Purrfect Potions!
This is a simple shooter/collecting game themed around two of my favorite things - kitties and spooky vibes. You play as a witch cat named Salem, who is on a quest to collect all of the ingredients to make her special potions. However, while collecting these ingredients, you must also fight off the evil kitty spirits of those who came before you!
The mechanics are simple. Keys to move between states and levels are displayed on the screen. The arrow keys can be used to move, while the "s" key is what causes spells to be shot from Salem's wand.
Salem can pick up items for her potions, and spells can be shot at the ghosts, causing them to disappear.
Why make this game?
I created Purrfect Potions for several reasons. Firstly, I really wanted to see some of my personal art be brought to life through code. I hand drew Salem's character and the backgrounds for each level. Seeing my art become something interactive was absolutely amazing for me. I have always loved art, but I wanted to explore making it truly come to life. Secondly, I wanted to put my coding skills to the test. Although I may not be the best at it all the time, I really enjoy coding. The idea that I can build something so interactive from scratch fascinates me. Having a bit more creative freedom with the coding for this game made me all the more excited to work on it. It was very challenging and frustrating at times, but I am so happy with all that I have learned from building Purrfect Potions.
I have absolutely adored video games since I was a little girl. I have so much respect for developers and the artists that pour their heart and soul into absolutely incredible games. Making Purrfect Potions was such a meaningful experience to me because it showed me just how hard these developers and teams work. My dream is to work in the video game industry one day, so making this game really showed me what just scratching the surface feels like. I thought that my struggles while coding Purrfect Potions would make me change my mind about working in game development, but it has only fortified my desire.
The Building Process
To begin creating Purrfect Potions, I of course needed to come up with a concept. The design for Salem was inspired by my solid black cat, PJ. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I love spooky themes. So, I knew I wanted my game to have a Halloween-ish mood. After coming up with the concept for my game, the core pieces of the code needed to be determined. For Purrfect Potions, I relied mostly on the workings of collision detection. This coding method was employed when making Salem pick up items when running into them, and making the ghosts disappear after being hit by a spell. The rest was done by working with the keyPressed function to make certain keyboard keys trigger specific events and state changes within the game. To further the spooky vibe, I added in background music and a self-recorded "pew" sound for the spells.
To make the art for this game, I used an app called Procreate on my iPad. The animation for the ghosts was made using Piskel. After finishing these art pieces and the core functionality with my code, I simply applied the art to the pieces of the game, giving it a more polished finish and refined theme.
Image Gallery
