Another year another Jam! The global game jam has become one of my favorite annual traditions, the community that has been built here locally is amazing.
It’s been fun to watch everyones skills grow, folks who were new to game development are now mentoring new members coming in.
I hope this is something that continues to grow here locally and we can keep fostering this incredible community.
//Postmortem
This year I tried to come in with out any pre conceived notions or ideas, I wanted to try to join a team as a support role and help craft and mold a concept into something nice and exciting.
At our jam location a lot of teams are formed before the event begins, folks have worked together a ton over the years and it’s cool to see these small teams grow.
This year I had the opportunity to jam with two members I’ve jammed with before and one I hadn’t.
// Conceptual Directions
The theme was bubble this year. Which felt easier to generate ideas then in years past, but also felt like a trap. It was easy to come up with things that felt generic.
We spent about an hour chatting through different bubble concepts and themes that would go with the mechanics we were deciding on. The theme of “booger boys on burp mountain” sadly wasn’t chosen, lol.
We landed on a concept of an arena shooter where you need to capture folks into a bubble. Taking inspiration from a game called Bubble Bobble from the 80s. Once we landed on that we had a long stream of mechanics but choose to just focus on 2 with the time we had.
// Day 1
Our first full day was focusing on the core mechanics of the game. The goal was to have a fully playable experience with all of our mechanics ready to go so we could focus on polish and art on the second day.
We quickly got the core elements in the game but the bubble capture took a lot longer than we thought. While half of our team was working on the code myself and another were focusing on the level design and the art for the game.
// Day 2
The morning of day 2 we had everything blocked in and really focused on polish. The first thing we did was play test the game together and make sure our loop was complete.
After that we focused on polish on the characters movement and mechanics while enhancing the level design and art.
// In Closing
Once again i had a great time and had a chance to work with some incredible people. We’ve uploaded our game to itch.io and the global game jam website.
Big thanks to my ❤️ wife for watching the kids all weekend so I can hangout and make video games!
// p.s.
Reading - Nexus
Watching - Severance
Playing - Indiana Jones & Tears of the Kingdom