Staff of Randomness

Staff of Randomness is an arcade game I designed and developed for web browsers as an instructional aid while teaching teenagers how to code as an iD Tech online camp instructor. I started work on this in June of 2020 and only returned to continue development for a few weeks at a time each summer until August 2023, an estimated 6 months of development spread out over 4 years. There was no real plan to polish or publish this game when I started, it just evolved over the years to serve as a robust yet approachable demonstration for students. I decided to publish Staff of Randomness to Itch.io after parting ways with the camp in early 2024.

RULES:
Survive as long as you can while transforming ghosts into random critters with your magic staff.  Grab power ups when you can, because the intensity ramps up as your score increases. See how high of a score you can get!

Note: It would be fun to track a high score table, but I am unsure how to go about doing that here. Perhaps I'll return to update this game when I take a break from other projects.

CONTROLS: Requires Keyboard & Mouse

• Move around with WASD or ARROWs
• Shoot magic projectiles with either Left or Right MOUSE buttons
• Restart with SPACE after touching a ghost

All code and 2D art assets were created by me.
All sound effects were created by various contributors and sourced from freesound.org.
The background music titled "Shoddy Haunt" was created by mathgrant. The game modifies the playback speed of the music according to gameplay intensity.