Forest Explorer is a 2D platformer game that was made during Global Game Jam 2018. Play as Priscilla as she embarks on an adventure through Ori Forest to find her family. Using her spores, grow mushrooms to climb and transmit control of yourself to the bugs you will encounter to wander deeper into the forest.

Forest Explorer was one of the first games I had ever worked on in a team. It was based on the theme transmission. We based our game mechanics on that theme, having the player shoot spores in order to take control of bugs. During their limited time controlling the bug, they can overcome obstacles that Priscilla herself could not. Due to time constraints, we made a small demo level as a proof of concept. It proved to be more like a tutorial level at the end of Global Game Jam.

I worked on creating visual assets, although I did pitch several game mechanics such as using mushroom spores to “take over” bugs temporarily. The idea was derived from the cordyceps fungus, but was revised to make it more friendly. To indicate control over a bug, I drew out spore stems that would be placed on top of the heads of the possessed bugs. I also had to fix up Priscilla’s sprite sheet to fill in missing frames and to vectorize the frames.

Despite the game being very simplistic, I really enjoyed the time that went into building it. It was the first game I had ever worked on in a team and it really showed me what working in a team was like. It was really fun and I hope that we could get together again to rebuild Forest Explorer.

Check out Forest Explorer on globalgamejam.com
Download Forest Explorer at itch.io

Credits

Programmers

Art & Design

Samantha Dimaano (Environment/Background, Main Title Screen)
Jelani Haynes-Prescott (Ant, Block asset)
Ethan L. Lupinski (Spores, Mushroom sprout animation, Text blocks)
Anisah Khandakar (Main character design)
June Enriquez (Butterfly design)
Timothy Nieto (Spore fern asset)

Special thanks to Reginald Williams II for moral support, 4 lines of code, and an unused asset.