What is Botherlands?

Botherlands is a small-scale top-down shooter prototype developed as a personal project to explore fast iteration, game feel, and lightweight procedural systems. The goal was to build a complete, polished gameplay loop within a limited time frame while experimenting with animation minimalism, shader experimentation, and responsive combat design.

Overview

The game is structured around a simple loop:
combat → rewards → upgrades → increasingly challenging waves.
Players fight waves of enemies in a compact arena, collect coins, and invest them in permanent upgrades between runs.

Despite its minimal scope, the project focuses on delivering strong feedback and “juice”: dynamic camera motion, screen shake, hit particles, muzzle flashes, and responsive weapon handling.

Technical Details

• Engine: Godot 4.5

• Programming: GDScript

• Art: Homemade pixelart + custom pixel assets and simple one-frame animation cycles

• AI: Lightweight state-based enemy behavior

• Systems:

  • Procedural enemy spawning

  • Modular weapon system

  • Hit detection using collision layers

  • Basic meta-progression via upgrade trees

• Design Approach:

  • Very small scope

  • Rapid iteration

  • Early polishing of core interactions (movement, shooting, feedback)

Result

A fully playable, free prototype demonstrating:

• Ability to design and implement a complete game loop

• Efficient use of limited animation and art resources

• Strong focus on moment-to-moment gameplay feel

• Practical understanding of Godot’s workflow and 2D pipeline

You can play the game for free in your web browser here