A few weeks ago I participated in the Global Game Jam from the Adelaide venue held at The University of Adelaide. Over the past few months I’ve entered a few smaller jams but unfortunately haven’t produced any completed games. I think part of this is due to going into the jams half heatedly and also not being able to stay for the entire duration of the event. There also seemed to be a bit of a culture around those jams which didn’t favour producing complete works.
I was quite excited about participating in this years Global Game Jam because these issues were mostly resolved. I was able to attend the jam for the entire weekend and the entrance fee made the event a bit more serious. Plus meals were covered which meant I could spend more time focusing on the game.
The theme for this year was a quote by Anaïs Nin:
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
I found this theme quite tricky as it doesn’t describe or orient itself around mechanistic properties of game systems. Having thought about the theme for a while I’d come to the conclusion that I wanted to make a game about egocentrism. There were two ways I thought of tackling this. The first was to focus on breaking down egocentrism by allowing the player to see something from a variety of perspectives. The second was to have an interpretive game that would prime the player into thinking their perspective was the only valid one and then at the end of the game reveal that there were actually multiple valid perspectives. The second approach seemed a bit deceitful and so I decided to go down the first path.
Initially I wanted to create a game around diplomacy between states. I’ve been taking an interest in the ideas around global politics and thought this would be a great opportunity to apply those ideas. I started sketching out a concept but after talking it through with others at the jam came to the conclusion that I needed to do more research on the topic than I had time for and get a feel for how war games worked.
From there I let my thoughts mindlessly wander. I find it easiest to generate ideas by zoning out after intensely thinking about something. The next major idea I had became the game we made. The idea was to have a racing game in which the replays of your past laps would become opponents on subsequent laps. This idea slightly subverts the concept of the racing line, the optimal path around the course. This idea is a bit stretch from the theme however at that point I figured it was best to get started on something(this was 15 hrs into the jam). The idea was quite novel and most definitely do-able. Plus I’ve been secretly keen to make a little racing game.
I started this game by creating the graphics and then doing the programming. Usually I take the opposite approach, as I feel the graphics should fit the game and so it’s best to put them in after you’ve figured out what units you’re working with. In past jams I’ve been fortunate to have worked with Izzy Gramp(see &TTW1 and You Want the Money?) who does great work. However this time around I didn’t have an artist team member and so had to do the art myself. Since I’m not much of an artist, I thought that I’d be best to give myself plenty of time to do the art well, hence doing it first before the end of jam panic sets in.
Luckily John Oestmann(see Moirai) was keen to work with me at the jam. He spent the Saturday knocking out the music and sound effects for the game. He was initially hitting some brick walls with the main theme but in the end pulled through with a really great track.
At the end of the jam we had a complete game. Overall we were both really happy with how it came together. It’s a polished, fun, little game which we really enjoyed making.
John and I have released an updated version of the jam game onto New Grounds and Game Jolt. The updated version contains four new tracks, leaderboards and achievements. Big thanks to Jamalaide for hosting the jam and the other jammers who rocked up. Be sure to checkout the other games made at the jam.