Overview
Drink is a sailing racing game I made in GameMaker Studio 2 for The Indie Tales Jam. The parts I find interesting are technical: the 3D look comes from sprite stacking — layers of 2D sprites drawn at small offsets to fake depth — and the sound effects were synthesized from white noise instead of recorded.
Every racing stage uses the same island; only the checkpoint layout changes, the way Mario Kart reuses its tracks for mirror mode. It was a cheap way to get several tracks out of one map.
Gameplay
You sail a boat through checkpoints around the island. A and D steer, W and S handle speed, and the rest is reading the course.
Controls
- A/D Keys - Steer the boat left and right
- W/S Keys - Control speed (accelerate/brake)
- Q/E Keys - Additional control options
- Right Mouse Button - Special action
Development
The art was made in Aseprite and MagicaVoxel. The audio started as white noise from a triple oscillator in LMMS and was processed in Audacity until it sounded like ocean waves and explosions — that took a fair amount of fiddling with oscillator settings. Sprite stacking means drawing a lot of layered sprites per object, so keeping the HTML5 build running smoothly took some optimization too.
Game Engine: GameMaker Studio 2
Art Tools: Aseprite, MagicaVoxel
Audio Tools: LMMS, Audacity
Rendering: Sprite-Stacking Technique
Platforms: HTML5, Windows
Genre: Racing, Sailing