This is a transcription from my blog about my experience at the Global Game Jam this year (my first Global Game Jam). The original post is here: http://blog.wakeskaterstudio.com/2014/01/global-game-jam-2014-evodash-postmortem.html
Global Game Jam 2014 - EvoDash - Post Mortem
Well it has certainly been a busy week. This past weekend was the Global Game Jam and what a time that was! It was a wonderful time creating games alongside a bunch of other talented people. Fire Hose Games also just did a live stream play through of SBX: Invasion as well today at noon.
So let's start with the Global Game Jam. It was exciting, it was exhausting, it was all around a good time. I left for the Jam on Friday and took the Commuter Rail into the city. The Jam location was at Northeastern University in the Digital Commons (which is quite an impressive area) in the Library. The site was open for 24 hours a day so I planned to stay for the entire duration and brought a blanket and neck pillow accordingly.
The first day was a lot of fun, and right at the start I knew I wanted to get our team together and start work asap. After all, 48 hours is not a lot of time to finish a game. So during the mingling a group of people kind of came together, and I asked if anyone knew C# and wanted to work in Unity and two of them said they were fine so we set out a group quickly. The theme was "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." and we grouped in a corner of the library with a white board and started hashing out ideas.
Our final idea that we decided would come to be known as 'EvoDash'. The concept was that the game was essentially an infinite runner / survival game, that evolves based on the player's actions. The player also changes based on the way they play as well.
For instance, the player can move through the world by sprinting, jumping and dashing in addition to the normal run. These actions require endurance, which is a limited, regenerating resource. As the player jumps during the game, their jump becomes stronger, as the player sprints, their speed increases, and as the player dashes, their dash becomes longer and on a shorter cool down. However, if they don't use these skills, they will decay down to a minimum over time.
In addition, the world will generate obstacles based on the current stats of the player, so if you jump often, there will be jump obstacles, if you dash often, there will be dashing challenges. All of this being procedurally generated. That's the high goal at least. We accomplished this to a degree for the Jam, but it will certainly take some refinement to fully realize this.
Then we set out to create the game. We located a table with some screens set up and assembled our workplace. Our team was comprised of 6 people:
- Lead Designer & Gameplay Programmer...............................Jason (Me)
- Lead & PCG Programmer.....................................................Kevin Cavanaugh
- 2D & UI Artist......................................................................Christian DeSilva
- Musician & SFX Artist..........................................................Harry Lodes
- Programmer & Git Specialist.................................................Jeffery Robbins
- Programming Assistant..........................................................Jacob Ginsparg
