A Game Jam Win

About halfway through December I participated with 3 others as a team in a game jam centered around creating a mobile game for a specific type of controller. I went into it with a focus on Game Design, but ended up also building level segments for the game, and creating some of the sound fx used. A limitation for this jam, besides having to use the controller, was that we had to use Unity as the engine for making our game.

Game design:

I focused on what the controller provided with regards to affordances and limitations. As we had access to registering how the controller got tilted from side to side, and when the controller was moved, the short time a 48h game jam offers meant that the decision ended up being a runner type game where the tilting would then translate to how far sideways from the center the character could move, while swinging the controller would signal the character to attack. A personal goal for me, regardless of how our game placed, was that if the testers and judges ended up with a big smile on their face while playing the game, I would count that as a success.

Level design:

For the level itself, I decided to build three segments that could then be used in both directions, basically allowing us 6 different looking segments. We initially wanted to make the game endless by making it procedural, but this was one of the features that we ended up cutting due to the timeframe. To save on time, the houses are from an asset pack.

At the end of the jam we not only took 1st place, but there were big smiles and grins from the testers and judges who tried the game, making it the personal success I had set initially.

Below should be a video of a teammate playing the game.