Game Jam - Lunch Crunch (3 Days)

Boiling Point:

For this project we as a year was tasked with creating a game within a short amount of time with some form of theme (in essence, a Game Jam). We were tasted with creating groups of 5 and was given the theme to be Boiling Point; this theme we could interpretive however we liked and had to make a single screen game (camera would not be allowed to move) that had around 5 minutes of gameplay.

During that afternoon we as a group decided to brainstorm different ideas and ultimately we decided to go with a 2D plat-former set in a kitchen to go along with the theme of Boiling Point (quite literally). We also had the idea that although the camera couldn’t move, we could create multiple levels that would transition to the next when the player gets to the end, that way we could put much more into the game while also keeping to the rules. Although we decided to go with a 2D game format, as one of the members in the group stated they weren’t strong using software such as Photoshop, we decided to use a 2.5D layout, as this would possibly add to the games overall look with hand painted textures, however this also meant having much more work to do unfortunately.

To begin we assigned ourselves jobs (mainly as this was we would but on our credits of the game). As I was assigned the job of lead artist I spent most of my time creating the 2D sprites of the characters within the game. As the game was set in kitchen, with our plan to have to levels in a fridge (ice level) countertop (normal level) and then the oven (hot level), we tried to create a wide range of characters.

The person who came up with the game idea also worked on the artwork of the game, finishing off the characters with facial features and later helping with the animations of the game. We ended up working with a good format, as I would sit next to him and design characters, he would tell me what would work, what wouldn’t or what might be a good idea. We gave each character backstories to help up speed up the process, using humour and jokes to keep it light hearted. Once I had finished a character, I would then send it over where he would add the facial features and at the same time I would work on the next character. This process worked really well although we were continuously working non-stop, we were able to finish most of the characters within one day.

Character Sprite Sheet

Character Sprite Sheet

Characters with faces

Once each character was finished we each took a few and gave them arms and legs and began making the sprite animation. As I was new to this I would have taken a little longer, however after being shown and being reminded of stop animation this process didn’t take to long. Each character would have an idle, walk, and wall jump and dying animation. We took inspiration from Super Meat Boy for its fast game play, with as soon as the player dying, they can start straight away without loading of respawns, thus not taking the player out of the immersion.

During this time another member of the group was making 3D assets to be placed in the game, these consisting of blocks to build the levels with, and different kitchen utensils that would kill the player. As a day had already been spent with character creation, a lot of the assets had already been made and unwrapped. Once the UV map had been sent over we once again split the workload between me and the other artist, and began creating hand painted textures.

As the blocks would be used to build the levels, I designed the textures for the blocks specifically with each level in mind. For example, ice blocks that would cause the player to slide for the fridge level, or wooden/marble blocks for the kitchen level. Another good feature of using blocks to build the level was that once the UV map for a singular map was made, I could make countless other textures for the blocks to build the different levels. Other Meshes that were made were such things as an oven, meat tenderizer, frying pan and a few others.  While there project wasn’t completely smooth sailing such as a heated dispute about what certain blocks should do or where they should go. However even with disagreements about the utility and how aesthetically pleasing certain choices would be, we ultimately was able to texture all the blocks and utensils for the game (equalling to around 15 individual different textures).

Icicle, Ice, Snow, Concrete Blocks

Honey, Grate, Marble, Wood Blocks

Oven, Meat Tenderiser, Hot, Obsidian Textures

Saucepan, Knife, Honey Jar, Frying Pan Textures

While all this was going on two other members of the team was working on the game itself; with on planning level design and the other creating the blueprints for all the moves in the game, including the blocks specific properties (such as the honey jar slowing the player).

The final part to do for the artists was to create the Start screen, character select screen and controls screen. the character select screen i decided to use the sprites we already had to make it much easier and to save time, for the background I did a basic render of each of the levels to give the player a sense of understanding as to what was to come. sticking to the humour route the start screen was all the characters doing the cliche jump from an explosion, as i felt this showed the humour of the game. As one of the other team members had time he was also able to help me with the custom buttons we used in the select screen.

As with the controls screen, we wanted to keep the humour blunt and to the point, as well as to not confuse the player. We made the controls screen as simple as possible to do so.

Title Screen

Character Select

Movement Screen

It was the last day; all the meshes had textures as well as having each character individual sprite animations finished. It was at this time however everything started going wrong. Out first problem was that the member creating the blueprints for the game wasn’t able to have the screen transition between each level, thus we wouldn’t be able to make multiple different levels. Although this could have been rectified if they had told us sooner (as it was one of the first jobs we needed to be finished) we also understood having one person doing all the blueprints for the game could have been too much of a challenge.

Blueprints

Unfortunately there were more problems to come about. The first again involving the blueprints, this time after working before something went wrong with the characters wall jump; where unlike a normal wall jump, the character would slide straight up the wall. This caused a problem as it took out the skill of timing jumps the player could now stick to the walls.

The final problem was a combination of everything else that had happened. As it was the last day and we were unable to have the multiple levels, all previous work on the game have to be placed into one level to show off everyone’s hard work. As we each couldn’t work one the level, as only one person couldn’t transfer data over because of errors happening, the asset production artist (who had also helped with blueprinting on the side) took the project home to try and combine everything together seamlessly.  This however backfired, as now the scene was far to cluttered with all the meshing trying to kill the player as well as being a much more cramped space for the player to play in. another problem was as all the meshes ran on the same blueprint, the swinging knives for example moved at the same time making the game seem robotic.

Final Level

As we had some time in the morning to try and tweak what we could we asked to have some of the meshes deleted to give the player some chance to actually play the game, as previous play testing’s had players die after the first obstacle. The artist however made the stubborn comment of his hard work would be less visible (as there was far to much going on and we needed to have at least half the obstacles in the level), and almost refused to change anything at all.

At this point there was no time left to argue and the game subsequently didn’t win any of the challenges set of this project (such as best 2D game, best humour, etc.) as in our review our game was stated to be to hard, and therefore the furthest players could get was the second level within the scene.

While arguably pointing fingers of blame wouldn’t help, it was still a loose that I felt could have been rectified due to better planning. If we as a group would have worked harder on the game mechanics first and perhaps less on the artwork perhaps problems couldn’t have been sorted. However knowing the game lost simply because it was too hard after most of the group clearly seeing this problem was vexing, ultimately this project taught us what working in a group meant.

During the short time of this project, I thoroughly enjoyed working with the other artist partner to create a good workflow, as well as seeing our creations and textures in game come to life. From what I would take away from this project would be to stand stronger against my instincts, as well as the way to work within a group, for better or worse.