Volmage Veil - BOOOM

In October 2023, I teamed up with my classmates at Sheridan College and participated in an online Gam Jam, BOOOM, under the group name Barbarian Game, for a very influential gaming media in China: GCORES.

The theme of this Game Jam was: Angels and Demons Dice. The organizers wanted to see players use their imagination to create an unbalanced game. Angel dice are meant to be absolutely favorable to the players, while demon dice are the opposite, representing a disadvantage that is absolutely unfair for the players to endure.

Through our active discussions, we decided to design a card game. The core gameplay of this game is that players will use electricity or magic to create an absolute advantage for themselves in order to defeat enemies that are far more powerful than they are. The name of the game was designed by me: "Volmage Veil". Volmage is a word I made up myself, it combines the words Volt and Mage. It means combining electricity with magic.

I led and was responsible for the design of the level and game system.

Because of our need to complete college assignments, we had to take only 5 days out of the 20 days of Game Jam to work on the game design and production. So I decided to only make five regular levels and one instructional level.

Below is a brainstorming session on the Miro Board as I worked on the design.

The original design is in Chinese. I translated them into English.

As you can see from the picture above, I not only designed the names of the enemies for each level, but also their specialty cards. For example, the Minotaur in the second level, since he is a bull-headed monster, I designed a unique card for him: Yingli, which has the effect of charging at the player, but also takes some damage itself. This reflects the savage and ferocious nature of this enemy. There's also Kamazoz, the fourth level, who fights in a dark environment. This enemy is a giant bat monster. The bat's trait is that it can maneuver through the darkness and use it to its advantage. That's why I gave it 5 Night cards in the card pool to add favorable buffs to itself.

 The original design is in Chinese. I translated them into English.

I was also involved in the design of the cards in the game as a Game Designer. And assisted a group member with the design of the game system. I mainly focused on the design of the various values of the cards. As you can see from the picture above, I designed most of the effects of the electricity and magic cards. As well as which levels they would appear in. I also designed the monster's and player's HP for each level, as well as the effect values for many of the cards.

After five days of designing and testing with almost no sleep, we finished and uploaded the game in time for the last day. I also designed our own promotional page on the GCORES website.

Link : Volmage Veil | 机核 GCORES

The game received many positive reviews after participating in the event. And it was praised by the CEO of GCORES on their official live channel. In the November judging, our game received an award of excellence.

*In no particular order