Exorcism

How to Play: Press the arrow keys (up, down, left, right) to exorcise demons as they appear.

Match the demon to the correct direction to banish it.

You must exorcise 20 demons to win.

You have 3 lives—missing a demon costs one life. Lose all three, and it's game over!

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Technical Details

• Submission Form Link
• GitHub Link

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Lecture Details

 In Exorcism, your reflexes and precision are your greatest weapons. As demonic entities flash across the screen, you must quickly press the corresponding direction key to banish them back to the underworld. There are four demons, each tied to a specific direction—up, down, left, or right. The goal is simple: exorcise 20 demons to claim victory. But be warned—you only have 3 lives. Miss a demon, and you lose one. Lose all three, and the demons win.

Originally, the game displayed keyboard direction key sprites before each demon appeared, making the game extremely easy. This was removed to increase the challenge and test players' reflexes and memory.

• Gameplay video

Design Details

Balance

I carefully balanced the speed and frequency of demon appearances to provide a fair challenge.

Communication

I  designed all the visual sprites for the demons to enhance the game's atmosphere.

Iteration

The game mechanics went through several iterations. Initially, the game displayed direction key sprites before each demon, but this made the game too easy. After removing these prompts, the game became more challenging and engaging, focusing on players' reflexes and memory.

Freshness

I never used lists and loops before in my games, and it was really challenging to design Exorcism around this. Figuring out how to make the gameplay work with these new techniques pushed me to think differently and really improved the game overall.