Transyl-Mania

Transyl-Mania is a 2D top-down action-adventure built for the NES Game Jam under the theme Horrible Night to Have a Curse! You were wandering one night when you stumbled upon a castle — and were cursed and turned into a vampire! To break the curse, you must fight, feed, and find your way out before the night claims you for good.

Tags: Made with Unity • Pixel art • NES controller scheme • 256×224 resolution • Built during the jam

Controls

The game follows the NES controller scheme, mapped to the keyboard. (Key bindings are defined in the project's Input Actions asset; the mapping below reflects the current build.)

D-pad
Arrow keys
Move in 8 directions
A
J
Attack — swing at enemies (with a cooldown to prevent spam)
B
K
Interact / Shadow Travel — context-sensitive (see below)
Select-Enter

Pause — opens the pause menu
Start-Escape

The B Button (K) — Context-Sensitive

A single button handles every world interaction, choosing what to do based on what's nearby, checked in priority order:

1. Chest in range → open it for coins
2. Corpse in range → feed and refill your blood meter
3. Nothing nearby + Shadow Travel unlocked → teleport in your facing direction (in progress)

Gameplay Phases

Exploration — The Cursed Castle

You move through hand-designed rooms populated with enemies and hazards. Each room presents the same core challenge: survive, feed, and find the route onward.

• Attack (J) to fight enemies; the swing has a cooldown, so timing matters more than mashing.
• Feed (K) on the corpses you create to keep your blood meter up.
• Avoid the sunlight, which accelerates your hunger.
• Collect coins from chests scattered through the levels.
• Take damage from enemies and hazards like spikes — you flash red and get knocked back, and your health bar ticks down.

Combat & Feeding

Combat and survival are deliberately linked. Killing an enemy doesn't refill your blood automatically — it drops a drainable corpse. To gain the blood, you have to walk over and feed (K), playing the bite animation and consuming the corpse for its blood value. This makes every kill a two-step commitment and keeps you exposed while you feed.

Progression — Keys, Doors & Levels

The game spans multiple levels connected by room transitions (a fade-out, camera reframe, and player reposition). Locked doors block the path forward; finding the matching key opens them. Chests reward exploration with coins, which fuel the potions and upgrades that carry you deeper into the castle and closer to your escape.

Visual & Audio Feedback

The cursed world reacts to your actions:

• Damage flash — both you and your enemies flash red when hit, then return to normal
• Knockback — hits shove you (or the enemy) back, selling the impact
• Low blood warning (designed) — as the meter empties, the screen shakes and tints red
• Music — separate tracks for the main menu, gameplay, victory, and defeat, with volume controllable in settings
• Directional animation — the vampire and enemies animate across 8 directions with idle and walk states, plus attack and bite animations

Progression & Difficulty

• Later levels introduce tougher, scarier enemy types
• Room layouts and hazard placement escalate the challenge across the three levels
• The blood meter creates constant pressure — you can never simply wait things out

Credits 

Developed in Unity (6000.4.6f1) with custom pixel art and original audio, created entirely during the jam by a student team:

• Ella — art direction, level design, character & enemy art, animations, shadow travel, gatekeeper, UI, and the start scene
• Orel — blood meter, game state manager, combat logic, music integration, menus, and room transitions
• Jared — enemy movement, map integration, knockback, item persistence, checkpoints, and sound design
• Elijah — game concept, story, narrative direction, and the player health system