2D PIXEL PLATFORMER
Silent Maelstrom set out to answer the question:"How can a game prototype transform the act of combat into a metaphor for confronting memory and grief, making emotional themes playable rather than only narratively described?"
The challenge was not to make a polished, finished game, but to test whether a small-scope, character-driven 2D platformer could carry emotional weight through mechanics. The aim for this prototype was to build a gritty, punchy slice of gameplay that proves the idea, rather than a complete story experience. This means the goal was:emotion first, full production later.
The brief was to design and develop a working vertical-slice prototype of a 2D platformer in Unity, built from custom assets, animations, environments, and mechanics.
Deliverables included: A playable standalone build (Mac + PC), a player character with core animation states, at least one enemy type with logic, basic physics hazards, and a functional UI.This also required a recorded walkthrough video to demonstrate the prototype's interaction loop and intended future direction.
The intention was to validate the concept, not complete a full production game.
Silent Maelstrom is a fight to remember, a journey through storm and sorrow, where reclaiming the self means facing what broke it. It is a prototype 2D pixel-art platformer that explores combat as a metaphor for grief and memory. You play as Tara. a foul-mouthed, whiskey-fueled sailor elf whose world has been torn apart by a magical storm. Each shattered island holds fragments of her past and the souls of her family, waiting to be reclaimed.
The player explores hostile islands, brawls with fish-like creatures, and collects Soul Shells to unlock memories and restore what was lost. Combat is raw and personal, fists only, fuelled by booze-powered buffs rather than blades or spells.
Environmental hazards like spikes and acid pools turn each island into both battleground and emotional trial.A responsive health and respawn system, hand-drawn pixel art, and subtle narrative cues build a world where every punch lands with purpose.
Silent Maelstrom is a fight to remember, a journey through storm and sorrow, where reclaiming the self means facing what broke it.
This prototype exists to test one core idea: grief isn't told, it's fought through.
Silent Maelstrom is designed for players who enjoy narrative-driven indie prototypes, and who are drawn to games that experiment with emotional themes through mechanics, not just dialogue.
It appeals to players who appreciate character-driven concepts, humour with bite, and small-scope playable slices that explore narrative in unconventional ways.The audience here isn't "the steam marketplace", it's people excited by emotional mechanics, early-stage proofs, and experimental narrative systems.
When a magical storm fractures the sea, sailor-elf Tara loses everything, her ship, her family, and her sense of self. The once-unbroken ocean splinters into scattered islands, each one holding the trapped soul of someone she once loved. In this prototype, the player only experiences one of these fractured islands, a glimpse of the larger world Tara would traverse in a full game.
Armed with only her fists, her whiskey, and her sharp tongue, she punches through waves of fish-like enemies to piece together what remains of her past. Each island is intended to become both a battlefield and a confession, a confrontation with the people and pain that made her who she is.
Silent Maelstorm aims to explore combat as a metaphor for grief, this prototype tests that mechanic at a small scale. Every punch, fall, and restart mirrors the emotional cycle of loss: denial, anger, exhaustion, and eventual acceptance.
The islands aren't just levels, they are designed to represent fragments of memory, distorted by trauma and guilt. Enemies represent manifestations of those memories, while the Soul Shells Tara collects are pieces of herself slowly being reclaimed. In this world, fighting isn't about survival, it's about remembering.
Together, these layers create a story that is not told, but fought for. Silent Maelstorm proposes a platformer about confronting grief one punch at a time, finding fragments of self in the wreckage of loss, and learning that healing is not a straight line, but a storm survived.
The name Silent Maelstrom comes from the family ship that Tara sails. The Dead Lobster studio name originated from a long-running online alias, born out of a lost bet that resulted in the nickname “Lobster.” What began as a joke evolved into a personal emblem of resilience, irony, and creative authenticity. A reminder to embrace imperfection and find inspiration in the unexpected.
The Dead Lobster studio logo explores a tongue-in-cheek yet gritty sense of humour, a visual direction proposed for this prototype phase
The simplified black lobster icon, with its red “X” eyes, instantly communicates a blend of dark wit and personality. Its blocky, geometric construction and limited colour palette of black, red, and white suggest the DIY roots of indie game studios and hint at the sharp, unapologetic tone Silent Maelstrom aims to explore.
The Silent Maelstrom logo tests a visual metaphor for the world, a storm frozen in time, rendered in lush pixel art. The logotype’s slightly uneven, organic letterforms evoke motion and instability, symbolic of both the storm and the protagonist’s fractured sense of self in the proposed wider game narrative. It feels hand-rendered yet controlled, mirroring the intended tone of the wider concept: gritty on the surface, human at its core.
Silent Maelstrom aims to test whether emotion can be made playable
Instead of separating story from gameplay, this prototype explores whether mechanics, like punching and Soul Shell collecting, can carry narrative weight.The prototype’s philosophy is exploratory: can grief be fought rather than told?
Tara's brawling style is intentionally raw and unrefined, there are no elegant combos or flashy weapons. Just fists. Every hit feels heavy, deliberate, and slightly desperate, mirroring her struggle to push through loss. The booze buff mechanic offers temporary strength but at a cost, echoing self-destructive coping.
This prototype tests whether that tension between empowerment and exhaustion can make combat feel human rather than heroic.
Fist-based brawler/platformer combat with booze-powered buffs. No Swords, no spells, just fists and sailor grit.
The game’s core loop: explore → fight → collect → unlock memory → repeat — transforms progression into a healing process.
Each Soul Shell acts as a fragment of Tara’s identity, a reminder of what was lost. As the player collects them, the world slowly shifts: colours become warmer, music softens, and new dialogue hints emerge. This prototype investigates whether progress could feel like recovery visualised.
Soul Shells earned by completing each cousin’s island level. Unlocking upgrades.
The world itself fights back. Spikes, acid pools, and falling platforms aren’t arbitrary hazards, they represent the sharpness, corrosion, and instability of memory. The prototype frames the level space as an emotional landscape where pain is both obstacle and teacher.
The death/respawn loop is used to hint at the cyclical nature of grief, falling apart, then trying again.
Dynamic hazards that change based on player emotions. For example, areas of the map may become more treacherous as the player experiences loss.
The prototype experiments with pacing between chaos and rhythm. Combat is punchy and fast, but level pacing encourages pauses for reflection, giving players space to breathe before plunging back into battle. These shifts in tempo embody the ebb and flow of healing, where calm and storm coexist.
Dynamic pacing that adapts to player actions. For example, after intense combat sequences, the game may introduce quieter moments for players to regroup and reflect.
In the full version, gameplay would become the narrative arc, this prototype tests the foundation of that idea. Every mechanic reinforces the game’s emotional thesis: that moving forward isn’t about avoiding pain, but meeting it head-on.
By merging narrative intent with tactile design, Silent Maelstrom transforms a classic 2D platformer into an interactive elegy, a story you don’t just play, but survive.
The visual direction of this prototype explores imperfection as identity.
Rather than polished minimalism, the game adopts a hand-crafted pixel aesthetic that feels raw, human, and emotionally textured. A visual metaphor for the fractured memories Tara is forced to traverse.
Every pixel is intentional, carrying both grit and vulnerability. The 16×16 pixel grid grounds the game in a familiar retro space, yet the rendering and composition lean heavily on atmosphere and tone.
The goal for this prototype wasn’t nostalgia, but testing intimacy in a rough pixel form. The coarse, imperfect strokes of pixel art reflect the messy process of grief and the jagged edges of memory.
By using pixel art as both style and storytelling test-device, this prototype begins exploring how the world could become an extension of Tara.
The colour palette is subdued, favouring deep greens, faded blues, rusted reds, and muted yellows, the tones of an ocean drained of its light. These hues are used experimentally to hint emotion: the weight of time, the corrosion of memory, and the faint glow of resilience.
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A defining feature of this prototype’s art direction is a diegetic styled UI, the HUD and menu systems are styled as pages torn from Tara’s personal journal. Health bars, hearts, and menu notes appear hand-drawn, textured with graphite and ink.
This sketch-like treatment grounds the UI in narrative authenticity: players aren’t reading a game overlay, they’re reading Tara’s notes to herself. The rough edges and hand-drawn style reinforce the intimacy of her journey, transforming the HUD from a utility into an emotional artefact, a record of survival and self-reflection.
The prototype's environment direction proposes landscapes as externalisations of Tara's internal turmoil. Each island represents a distinct emotional state, from the oppressive darkness of regret to the brittle stillness of denial.
Enemy concepts in this prototype exaggerate form: crab claws, tentacles, and humanoid distortions evoke the grotesque familiarity of intrusive memories. They are never truly monstrous, only warped echoes of what once was.
Even static elements in this prototype, spikes, acid pools, are used to test metaphor as mechanics, embodying the physicality of pain and the persistence of memory.
Tara is the beating heart of Silent Maelstrom. Her design embodies raw emotion and unfiltered personality, a sailor elf caught between rage and heartbreak. Every animation frame was crafted to reflect her internal struggle, her movements heavy with grief yet driven by determination.
Idle
Walk
Jump
Attack
Block
Hit
Dead