Category: Game Jam Project

🎮 Dead Tired

A horror/puzzle game where you can access a spirit realm.

Summary

Role: Programmer & Team Leader
Team Size: 5
Engie: Unity
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Jam Theme: Leave Something Behind
Jam Length: 7 Days

Dead Tired is the result of a 1-week game jam between the 14th – 21st of November 2021. I took a week off work to take part in this jam as I had the days spare to use up and felt I could practice some of skills I had picked up over the last 8 months in industry at this point.

After working a 14-hours shift, all you want to do is go home. However this is not so easy at spirit corp. Just getting from your desk to the exit is a gauntlet. Your dead tired, so much so your own spirit is keep to help out. Can you leave the office?

Awards

Approach & Post Motrem

Our approch to this jam was a very relaxed one. While others like to crunch and push to make the most of the week. We focused instead on the rule that our lives came first. So we all worked normal hours, not pulling all nighters or stressing too much over getting every last feature in. We focused on a small scope of 3 levels, which was achieved with most of the mechanics we wanted in, in. Though as always, some elements of the game were cut for the sake of having a finished product. 

This jam went well, though I know I can do better. I took the week off to take part in the jam though I could’ve used the time off honestly. It was good to try out stuff I have picked up at work in a non-mobile game setting and I certain found a few issues I need to fix with the system packages I used in the jam. The industry feedabck was also great and is about what I expected from my own opinion on the game which was it was a good idea that needed more work really.

🎮 Break An Egg

A typing game with lots of egg puns.

Summary

Role: Sole Developer
Team Size: 1
Engie: Unity
Platforms: WebGl
Jam Theme: Survival
Jam Length: 2 Days

This game was made as part of a friendly jam between myself and some of my old university coursemates. I wanted a day to chill as I still had work the following week so I took a day off and finished the jam a day early. My entry this time was to be short but sweet with plenty of egg puns cause why not.

Approach & Post Motrem

I worked quite casually on this jam as it was a friendly one with some of my old uni coursemates. So I didn’t really push myself that much. Now having a full time job in games programming, I was wanting to take some time off over the bank holiday away from Unity. Because of this I went for a simple idea and finished it in just under 2 days so I could still have a weekend off to chill.

Probably the biggest struggle with this jam for me was coming up with a good idea, as I prefer to do something different each game I make. My first idea was too complex for 2 days of work, my second was to re-work an old unfinished project but that proved to be too hard to get into as the code-base was a total mess. I ended up resorting to doing the minimium scope for the first game idea and just going with it.

I’m quite happy with this game, it certainly was a nice little game to make. The hardest part being the code for the key registering as Unity just doesn’t have an easy solution for detecting when key was pressed, or at-least not an solutions that I could find during the jam. So I left it with a rather janky but working solution.

🎮 Inhuman Resources

A story/puzzle game where you possess people to progress.

Summary

Role: Programmer & Team Leader
Team Size: 5
Engie: Unity
Platforms: WebGl
Jam Theme: Strenght Lies In Differences
Jam Length: 7 Days

This was a 1 week game jam entry into the Games Jobs Live game jam. A jam that is focused on getting great games industry candidates infront of industry. These jams are great for experience as well which I why I took part. This time I kept most of my team from the previoius jam along with a few extra who I let join the team this time around.

Approach & Post Motrem

So this jam didn’t go as well as the last one from a technical side, the game was rather buggy for my liking and by the end of it, the game felt kind of like a walking sim, but it was still good practice none the less. The possession mechanic worked as intended though the platforming let it down really. Like the last jam I ended up doing a fair bit of the work and put the whole thing together, not helped by the fact that I was getting interviewed for a job in the same week, which I later got. I’m not sure if I’ll be taking part in the next jam in this series due to said job xD Though I’ll happily support the team I’ve made by doing the admin if they want to take part without me or with me as support.

🎮 No Presents For You

An action puzzle game where you steal presen.

Summary

Role: Sole Developer
Team Size: 1
Engie: Unity
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Jam Theme: You Are The Villan
Jam Length: 4 Days

Feeling evil this Christmas? Time to steal some presents with a twist. Your life depends on it. The more presents you steal, the more lives you have. The aim is simple, steal and many presents while getting away safetly.

Approach & Post Motrem

This was a friendly jam between myself and my old University coursemates through discord and itch. The idea was to make some games and have a little fun while also getting something out of it. My entry this time around was simpler so that I could finish it and try out some new scene transitions I had wanted to try out.

Inspiration

While at university my two best friends were total disney mad, a little of that rubbed off. The entire idea for the game came from the scene depicted in the video. Mostly the way the knights move in the early stages and the clear beat on their movement. The rest was to make it christmassy ‘n’ all. Its also just a good scene regardless of context.

I worked quite casually and didn’t really push myself that much, I did find that I still had a few issues with some of my assets (which I thought I had fixed) as well as some minor bugs with the movement. I did however get to use the old path finding script design I made back in the Maze Solver C++ project linked 🔗here. This turned out to be perfect for this game which save me some time, though getting it to work in this context too a little while to sort.

Overall I’m rather pleased which what I was able to make, by far it is nothing special and the levels are not hard at all, but its something I have built and can be proud of. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some of my other projects off the ground next year.

🎮 Oh Gnomes

Defend a garden centre as a gnome.

Summary

Role: Programmer & Team Organiser
Team Size: 4
Engie: Unity
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Jam Theme: Carpe Diem / Seize The Day
Jam Length: 7 Days

One weary night at the local Homebase, one garden gnome comes to life to defend his light, his sun, a light bulb that a staff member left on overnight. You play as the gnome and must defeat the beasts of the night to save the day. Unlike most gnomes, this is a heavily armed vetran commando gnome, armed with his fishing rod, an umbrella and some fireworks you must defend the light bulb at all costs.

Approach & Post Motrem

So, this was a one week long jam. I took part with a group of strangers to try and get out of my confort zone a little this jam. I opened up a open invitation for anyone who liked what I had done to join and ended up with a solid team of 4.

We got into a call a few days before the jam to brainstorm idea’s. I came up with the idea of a gnome that was fast from watching Trollhunters for the second or third time and loved the gnome characters, mostly when they were used as a scoreboard for a contest by throwing them like a dart at a board xD. To put it mildy, that stuck and the overarching theme for the next hour of chat was gnomes.

For the development of the game, I was the only programming focused member of the team, with Alex doing some sections and then moving onto level design and some additional art. For the most part the games development went smoothly. I didn’t run into any major issues and managed to get everything done in time. I persoanlly felt I carried a fair bit of the work as I ended up doing the animations & sound implementation in the final days which was a little stressful. On top of that I made the itch.io page as well.

Overall I felt that the game was a decent release, though I knew there were a few problems with the animation and input. I was happy with my team and the overall standing of 21st place. Hoping to do even better next jam.

🎮 Jump Drive

A platformer where you jump between dimensions to avoid obstacles.

Summary

Role: Sole Developer
Team Size: 1
Engie: Unity
Platforms: PC & WebGl
Jam Theme: Only One
Jam Length: 48 Hours

This was my entry into the GMTK 2018 Game Jam, I took part for the fun of it mostly as I had some time free on the weekend of the jam and wanted a challenge. The idea of this game was simple, you had a player running and you had to press a jump button to hop between two realities to avoid obstacles.

Approach & Post Motrem

Well, this was my first short jam in a while most other jams were either really short and a full week long. For this jam I was focused on make a decent game while keeping the scope low enough that I can make it while keeping my commitments over the weekend of the jam.

The idea came about after spending around an hour pondering ideas. It can be hard to get an idea when you have no-one to talk to about it. I eventually came up with only one button teleporting, which is what I developed. While I can’t say it went smoothly, it did go well for once. I did get a few weird bugs such as the gravity not resetting when you died upside down or the bullets following you after you were already hit by one etc.

Overall, I actually found this jam to be a nice challenge, not too hard but hard enough.

🎮 Lights Out

A point & click game where you turn off the lights.

Summary

Role: Sole Developer
Team Size: 1
Engie: Unity
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Jam Theme: Balance
Jam Length: 3 Days

Lights out is a super simple game where you keep the lights out. The name of the game sums up what you do. However it’s not that simple. There are 7/15/26 malfuntioning lights in the room which constantly turn themselves back on. Your job is to keep them off for as long as you can. If all the lights are on, you lose.

Approach & Post Motrem

This was one of the first game jams I took part in for the fun of it. I wanted to keep the scope low and achieveable and what I ended up with was a good simple project that I’m still happy with to this day. This was my entry into a Score Space game jam, a jam where streamers play the games in the jam and compete to get the highest score. Each entry needed to have a leaderboard or score display in order to be a valid entry.

This jam was certainly an interesting one. What I learnt the most from this one was the fact that the game can look good and run well, but if the theme isn’t glarinly obvious, people won’t pick up on it. This I feel is why I had such a bad score on the theme adherance this time around. I felt this was rather a shame as I though I had a nice interpritation with the job of the player to keep the lights from taking over by turning them off, therefore keeping the balance in the game. But hey ho, next time I’ll be more blunt with the theme in my game.

On another note, I took the time to rate as many games as I could, focusing on the litle guys. These been the games that get ignored / overshadowed by the polished and looked at titles. I’m pretty sure I only got so many rating because of the fact that I took the time to rate and comment on each of their games.