Developed over 6 days for the Side Quest with Women in Games, Empty Nest is a 2.5D platformer. Inspired by the book 'Are You My Mother' by  P. D. Eastman, the story follows an egg trying to get back to the nest.

Empty Nest is a 2.5D Platformer developed over 6 days for the Side Quest with Women in Games. The theme was: 'Mother'.
Using the community Discord server, I formed a team of women from both the UK and the US.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Game Design: Created and maintained the GDD, Created and maintained the Game Flow (using Miro).

• 2D Art: Characters (Image above).

• Level Design: 1 Introduction level, 3 levels.

Art

During the game jam, I used Photoshop to create the images and then added a sticker effect to promote the idea that a child was able to use these "stickers" to decorate the page while reading the story. Once I had finished the initial art, I cut out an area around the asset to leave it white and added a layer to add a minor crinkle effect.

I used references from the book 'Are You My Mother' to include each animal that was mentioned in the story.

Level Designs

The team ideally wanted to create a 2D platformer, but due to time constraints we decided to develop a simple 2D platformer which we could iterate on if we had the time. I designed the three levels which were then created by another member of the team. 

I made sure to include references to the book as this was our main inspiration and led us to the idea for the game. I inserted the animals in order of appearance in the book, as I wanted it to be as closely related to the book as possible.