Cavern Blitz was developed in collaboration with 4 other students as a part of a game jam run by the Game Design and Development class at UC Berkeley. In it, the player traverses through procedurally generated caverns while collecting resources that they can use to craft newer and better gear. It was heavily inspired by games like Stardew Valley and Terraria, as well as the roguelite genre.
The idea for Cavern Blitz literally came to me in a dream: essentially taking Skull Cavern from Stardew Valley and combining it with the crafting and gear progression of games like Terraria or Minecraft. The concept lived in my mind for a while until I had a chance to pitch it for the game jam, and I managed to assemble a team that was excited to work on the project.
Since I had been the one to pitch the game, I acted as the team lead and creative head of the project. I ran meetings, delegated tasks to myself and the other students, set goals, and designed the majority of the gameplay mechanics.
I was also a programmer on the project. I designed and implemented a system for procedurally generating cave levels, as well as the game’s crafting system. I helped out in many other aspects of the game, such as camera work, mining, animation, player movement, and combat.
You can play the game right in your browser on my itch.io: https://npels.itch.io/cavern-blitz
An addition from the future: You may notice a lot of similarities between Cavern Blitz and a later project of mine, Lantern: Caverns of Chaos. Indeed, Lantern is essentially an expansion and continuation of the ideas of Cavern Blitz. Check out my blog post about Lantern for more!