DUEL-ALITY
Global game jam 2022
About Duel-ality
DUEL-ality is a deckbuilding game where you and your opponent share a deck. You draw cards together and whichever cards you don't pick go to your opponent. Each card has benefits and drawbacks, so you must choose your cards carefully in order to improve your own hand while keeping your opponent from becoming too strong.
DUEL-ality was created for Global Game Jam 2022 for the theme “duality”.
THe Team
Ashley Chen - Producer and Artist
Nitesh Sridhar - Artist
Joel Forrester Ewen - Programmer
Raymond Elie-Pierre - Programmer
Ediken Abia - Sound Design
Additional Credits
Icon Images: The Noun Project
Color Palette: Twilight 5 by Star
SFX: SoundSnap
Gameplay and theme
Our team wanted to create gameplay that encompassed the Global Game Jam theme, duality, to its fullest. To us, duality is two concepts that, while usually opposites, somehow intertwine and connect with each other. The phrase “two sides of the same coin” is a good representation of this concept. In game terms, each action the player takes should represent the concept of two sides, linked but separate.
This idea is the core behind DUEL-ality, and is what drove the primary game mechanics. Each choice the player makes is actually two choices, the attributes given to the player, and the attributes given to the opponent. The player must not only decide their own actions, but also the enemy’s action - the action against the player themselves. This also strikes the balance of risk vs reward, a necessity in a good strategy game. This is the fundamental gameplay loop of DUEL-ality.
Art design
DUEL-ality is centered around two characters, the player, and their opponent. Our goal was to make sure the theme, duality, was present throughout the game, including in the artwork. By choosing a limited color palette, we were able to assign each character their own dominant color, but use the opposite color as a highlight color, creating two distinct, yet linked, characters. Despite their varying height, both characters hold a very large weapon, showing they are equals in the battlefield. Each weapon is poised at the eye level of the opposing character, another nod to the inherent link these characters share.
The card design posed a different question. These cards needed to have icons for both characters, shown in a clear and concise manner. This was achieved by separating the top and bottom of the card. Each half represented a different character. The UI is designed so that once a card is chosen, it goes into the player's hand on the bottom of the screen. The bottom half of the card is cut off by the bottom of the screen, showing only the symbols that pertain to the player. The opposite happens when the remaining cards go into the opponent's hand - the top half cut off, showing only the opponent’s moves.
Visual Development
Schedule and Production
Global Game Jam is centered around creating a playable game in less than 48 hours. This is a very small time frame, and thus, each team member must stay on task in order to finish the game. As the producer, I was in charge of creating a schedule and keeping everybody focused and on task. First, as a team, we created a list of deliverables - the features we wanted to include in the game. Then, I created a schedule around those deliverables, marking what time each part of the game should be done by. This schedule was created to be flexible, to account for bugs, or miscellaneous diversions. Our team’s hard work and ability to stay on schedule allowed us to create DUEL-ality.