Shale Striker

Our submission for the Royal Ontario Museum's 2016 Game Jam! The theme was based on the Cambrian era's flora and fauna, which predates the age of dinosaurs. The game was created by 3 computer science students from the University of Toronto: St.George over a weekend.

Shale Striker, which adopts its name from the Burgess Shale (home for the referenced creatures), plays as a classic top down arcade adventure with a few unique twists. Depending on the creature's residence on the food chain (for example, apex predators like the anomalocaris), each playable character offers its own challenge.

The goal is to consume enough of other wandering specimens to collect "evolution points". When a sufficient amount has been accumulated, the creature essentially "evolves", and transforms into a different creature higher up into the food chain.

The initial upload, on the 18th of September 2016, is more a demonstration than the final product - the planned difficulties and differences between organisms have been simplified for the sake of presentation and constraints of time.