Carving Pumpkins & Dwarfing Dumplings is a party game for 1–8 players on the same device, all about slicing your opponents!

It uses a system I wrote that can realistically slice any shape.

When you throw a knife against your opponents, their shape is cut in half. And if you become too small? You are out of the game.

(In the end, I didn’t want to waste such a cool system on one simple objective, so I added many different minigames and arenas that explore this further.)

What’s special?

This game was made as part of a (self-imposed) “one week game” challenge. I do this to force myself to keep the project small and contained, and ensure I release something fun within a week. It’s the fourth game made this way.

The system for slicing shapes was actually written for a different project, but cut from that (because it just wasn’t fun there). When this decision was made, it was 9 days until Halloween. I instantly decided to make a One Week Game with a Halloween theme, and using this system to “carve” pumpkins was a no-brainer!

For some reason, the game quickly became very professional. (Maybe because I’d already done three One Week Games, maybe because of the strong theme or the fun slicing mechanic, who knows.)

This prompted me to add another week (after Halloween) to polish it and release it professionally.

November 3, 2021 professional own project