Play a game of Lethal Steampunk Rage Fueled Hot Potato!
Kicking and Screaming is a Player vs. Player action game made for Philly Game Mechanic’s Band Name Jam. Can you guess our band?
Players need to hit the machine back and forth, slowly building its rage meter. When the meter has filled, it’s primed and ready to explode. The last player to hit the machine before it lands on the ground wins. Players have standard attacks, special attacks built after hitting the machine, and a last ditch defensive blast that’s activated by screaming at your computer microphone.
I was project manager/cat wrangler, pixel artist, and did the audio and game design. Kevin Mai was lead developer and designer. James Bochanski contributed the player characters and rage meter. Emmanuel Whittington was our wunderkind musician with the fastest turnaround I’ve ever experienced.
Download and play!
Check out Kicking and Screaming on my itch.io page
Controls:
Move – Left thumbstick/WASD
Jump – A/Space
Hit – Right Bumper/E
Super hit – Right Trigger/Q/Screaming at the top of your lungs
Restart – R
Brief post-mortem:
Honestly, this game has roughly 5 too many mechanics. Early in development we were excited to implement the screaming mechanic, so players would literally “Rage Against the Machine.” What we didn’t consider was, unsurprisingly, screaming in public is fairly awkward for most people! Normal gameplay also does not flow logically – the bomb’s rage meter should decrease to zero instead of increasing to 10.
The largest flaw with this game stems from its overall complexity. With Friendship Train, we had one game mechanic that players grasped immediately and intuitively. This enabled Kevin and I to freely interact with people in line, and further drum up the buzz around our game.
Kicking and Screaming is the exact opposite. Even though Kevin and I knew the game, players were unable to parse our overly complex and fairly obtuse fighting game, which required us to give instructions for every single player.
“You and your opponent are in a lethal game of hot potato, where you need to hit the machine in the center of the room back and forth until its rage meter fills. After this happens the bomb will explode when it hits the ground. You want to be the last person to touch it to win. You can stop it though with your special attacks that fill as you hit the bomb. You can also…”
There’s still mechanics to explain after those ellipses, and the game suffered as a result.
I am proud of the art I created for the game, and the invaluable learning experience that can only stem from a less than successful game design. My games with simple understandable mechanics have been warmly received, and Kicking and Screaming serves as a reminder to chase that design philosophy.
(Or playtest a jam game before the deadline!)