Technorun was our first year game project at the University of Skövde. It's a music themed platform runner set in a humorous sci-fi world. The game was nominated for Best Execution in Audio at the 2015 Swedish Game Awards gala, but it did sadly not win the first prize. I was the creator of the original concept for the game and during the course of the project I worked as game- and level designer as well as project lead. For most people on the team this was the first big game they had ever worked on as a group. This meant we had to learn some important game development lessons the hard way. For me as a project leader, I found out that good communication and a solid structure within a development team is the key to success in the long run.

The initial game concept that I had envisioned was a runner game, where the players in-game performance would affect the levels soundtrack and layout. Due to technical limitations and the fact the the school project only lasted for 10 weeks, we had to downscale and rework the game. What we ended up with was platform runner game where the player had to keep ahead of the music at all times. This was represented by a giant playback line in the form of an energy beam that constantly chased the player. If he/she would fall behind too much certain layers of the music would be gradually cut out leaving the game with a crippled soundtrack and eventually ending the game. To me this was a fair compromise as I don't think we would have been as successfull with the game if we hadn't made these changes.

The game tells the stoy of how the two heroes Technoman and Cybergirl (the player chooses wich one to play as) has to save the city of Technopolis from the evil villain, Mutezart. Mutezart has tired of hearing the same old electro music coming from the citys party district and one day he decides to mute all the music (by some unknown technology). Technopolis falls silent and the player has to save the world by un-muting all the music.

Here's a trailer that our artist Maxine made during the project. It shows some gameplay and will hopefully give you you a better idea of what the game is about. (link is curently broken, trying to fix)