The Butterfly Effect

Enemies
Day 1
Traps
Explosions
Execution

Inspiration

Warning Forever
Machine learning & AI

What it is

Arcade-action survival game set in the spiral of cause and effect.

Not just how many days can you survive, but how many butterflies?!

Adaptive / dynamic gameplay:

Stand still, and the game will give you bombs.
Move around, and the game will give you a charge-up punch glove which you have to stand still to use.
Be aggressive / eliminate all of the enemies, and the game will spawn more powerful enemies.
Be passive / collect all of the + symbols, and the game will spawn more static traps e.g. buzzsaws and arrow-firing blocks.
Follow specific movement patterns, and the game will take note and trim down the play area.

Controls:

Move: WASD
Punch/bomb: Space bar
Menu progression: Enter
Fullscreen: F
You can also use a standard game controller like an Xbox 360 controller, if your browser supports it. Movement on left stick and punch/bomb on A.

How I built it

The Butterfly Effect is built using Force Of Habit's bespoke C++ game engine. The art is made in Photoshop and exported as individual frames. The music is made in Reaper with it's default ReaSynth plugin for sine/saw/tri waves and a few samples put in to ReaSamplomatic sampler plugin for drums. Sound effects are created in in Bfxr.

Challenges I ran into

Figuring out player abilities, progressions, and parameters that the game can use, as well as how it can use those parameters to modify its behaviour and rules.