Gooseberries is a casual couch co-op game based around defending a farmer's crops from ravenous bugs in a fast-paced, chaotic wave-based system. The waves gradually increase in difficulty, while powerups, random bug spawns and other special events contribute to a sense of frantic randomness similar to that of “Stick Fight”, “Bomberman” or “Mario Party”. We wanted to make a game that was easy to pick up and play for the casual or inexperienced gamer, perfect for a gaming session between friends.
Most of the unique aspects of the game come from its flavourful visual identity, as well as placing this format in a top-down shooter game. Many of these couch games either focus on providing the player with puzzles or minigames as those genres have a lot of potential for chaos and communication, but we wanted to use the typically more serious and “Adult” genre of shooters as a sharp contrast to our game. The concept of geese in a multiplayer scenario isn’t new to the gaming space, but guns attached to their beaks definitely is.
Meet The Team
Our team consists of second and third year Massey University students. Most of us are part of the Screen Arts degree - but several members of the team are either pursuing another degree or studying elsewhere entirely! It takes more than one person to make a wacky concept like this into reality, and every person's contribution counts no matter how small.
Behind The Scenes
From our first major development showcase, to our in-person playtests, these behind the scenes looks give insight into the development of Gooseberries as well as the design process.
Development showcase 9/9/2024
Our team's second playtest 7/10/2024
Want to see how the art of the game developed? Click a section below to see sketches and developmental artwork for different aspects of Gooseberries!
Bugs
Geese
UI
Environments
Bugs
It took some time for us to decide what kind of approach we wanted to take with the bug, just about everyone on the team designed the bugs in their style before we decided to go with Duyen’s cute but deadly approach. For the demo we’ve settled on two different archetypes, the Grunt and the Burrowing bug. If we ever got the opportunity to expand the game further, we’d love to introduce more bugs. - Grey
Geese
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UI
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Environment Art
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Animations
Click on the images to enlarge them!maybe a paragraph talking about the design process
Bugs
Geese
UI
Environments
Animations
Level Design
Level Design
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Have anything you want to contact us about? Use the form below or send a message to [email protected]!