Biochem 101

Sep 2025 - Dec 2025
Team Project
PC Game

Link to download the game: https://mauveella.itch.io/biochem-101

Project Overview

My Role

In Biochem 101, your mad scientist specimens have broken out of your lab and are completely out of your control! An experienced government agent is sent to you to help contain and deal with the experiments as a result. Now, it's up to you two to face the experiments together and stop them from destroying the world. Find the tools and reagents around you to craft deadly compounds that will defeat your enemies in silence or in style.

Project Manager
Game Designer

Introduction

Theme Setting

Biochem 101 is a co-op isometric beat-em up with a chem cooking minigame that focuses on fast, combo-based combat through the use of chemistry tools and mixing reagents together in battle. Each enemy is capable of one or two attacks. The types of enemies and number of enemies increase as the player progresses through the game. Every 3 levels there will be a final boss with 3 special abilities.

Players can move in 8 directions to navigate the map and will be able to progress a level by defeating the main boss and gaining the key to leave that area. Throughout the world, players will be able to find reagents from the chests that are essential for crafting compounds. Each chest can contain up to 5 reagents. Players who replay the level can open them again. Enemies also drop reagents when defeated.

Upon completing each level, players will enter a lab mini game. The Lab Minigame is built around risk-eward decision-making and co-op participation. Players never fully know what the result will be, but the button-press phase gives them a sense of partial control. This uncertainty encourages experimentation, creates variety between runs, and makes the lab feel like a playful extension of the combat system rather than just a utility screen.

Main Characters

The Mad Scientist: Dave Yesand

Role: Frontline Bruiser/Utility

Background:
A dangerously brilliant researcher who was in charge of conducting experiments for the American government in order to test the limits of humanity, Dave Yesand spent years experimenting on creatures and humans with increasing disregard for safety protocols. When he was dishonorably fired from his job, he ran to the uncharted woods to continue his experiments. One day, his most coveted and intelligent project escaped containment and freed all other experiments in the process, turning the entire facility into a hostile ecosystem of his own design. Approached by Jason Pivot to take responsibility, he weaponizes improvised tools, volatile chemicals, and reckless ingenuity in an attempt to clean up his own disaster.

The FBI Agent

Role: Ranged Damage/Medic

Background: Originally Dave’s dear friend, he was willing to vouch and protect him from his authorities, but one day, Dave devolved into more and more grotesque experiments. He could not help him from being fired anymore, nor did he want to.

However, The American government still wanted his work, just under the radar. Jason was originally deployed to monitor Dave’s work and quietly terminate his projects if it ever became dangerous. One day, he saw the city burning to flames as augmented monstrous humans destroyed everything in its path. He knew exactly who was responsible for this. Now, they work together, once again.

Weapons

Creative Combat

Creative Combat centers on the dynamic between Dave Yesand and Jason Pivot, promoting experimental combat over fixed patterns. Strongest outcomes occur when their abilities interact. For example, Dave’s chemicals can be ignited or frozen by Jason, or Jason’s stun can set up Dave’s detonation. These chain reactions reward timing and improvisation.

Combo Effect Definition

Combo effects represent the chemical reactions that occur when players combine specific weapons, elements, or environmental triggers. Each combo type has three reaction levels, which escalate in strength, visuals, and mechanical impact.

Levels may be reached by using stronger ingredients, stacking reactions, or applying tools in the correct sequence.

Mini Game

With the immediate threat neutralized, Dave Yesand and Jason Pivot retreat into their customized van. Jason jumps into the driver’s seat while Dave rushes into the mobile lab in the back. As the van speeds toward the next mission, the minigame unfolds as a synchronous co-op challenge: Jason handles real-time Driving, navigating incoming hazards on the road, while Dave frantically performs Potion Crafting, using the unstable shaking of the moving vehicle to agitate chemical mixtures.

The goal of the minigame is to brew potions that will be stored and automatically available at the start of the next combat encounter. These potions provide temporary buffs for players or debuffs for enemies, allowing teams to shape their strategy before entering the fight. Both players contribute simultaneously to a shared Progress Meter, and coordination is required to complete the brew.

Playtests

Across three iterative playtests, our goal was to progressively validate and refine the core systems of the game, from basic usability to meaningful co-op.

Playtest 1 (Early PoC) focused on whether a single player could intuitively understand the foundations of Creative Combat and the Lab Minigame, revealing strong engagement but major gaps in self-teaching UI and feedback.

Playtest 2 tested updated combat & minigame integration and co-op flow, aiming to see if players could understand potion carry-over, weapon-ingredient interactions, and shared decision-making without instruction; results showed that co-op and system logic were still unclear and often played in parallel.

Playtest 3 validated a redesigned, forced co-op structure with clearer roles, improved UI, and enhanced feedback, specifically testing whether intentional coordination, combo execution, and risk-reward systems were finally readable, satisfying in moment-to-moment play.