Experimental games workshop (June 2014)
Fuck me this jam was awesome. Without a doubt the most inspirational jam I've done to date. The day started with an inspirational speech from Yann Seznec, from Lucky Frame. He talked about his company's approach to game development and about how developers are often limited by trying to create their game experiences around established control mechanisms i.e. gamepads. He then treated us with examples of their approach such as their "roflpiller" game and a game whose controls involved punching a bowl of custard. These mechanisms appeared to be so out of scope for what I'd be able to accomplish but Yann had me convinced otherwise by the end of the day.
After the talk we ventured to another building and went up into the attic in search for anything that we could make a controller out of, something that could inspire use to make a fun experimental game. There were plenty of mundane items that suddenly appeared to have plenty of potential. I spotted an old corner shelf which laid horizontally, provided perfect spaces for installing buttons. However I thought about how that was perhaps me thinking too conventional and instead considered what options would be brought about by putting the shelf horizontal. I immediately started considering how fun and flustering it could be to have multiple people trying to access this thin shelf. There was room for 5 buttons, and there were conveniently 5 different button colours. I then proposed to our team the idea of creating a game similar to the horse races found in fairs, where players have to score points to move their horse along. The adaption would be that players had to press the colour displayed for them to move their character forward with the aim of crossing the finish line first. This jam was only to be 5 hours long, which seemed crazily short but we cracked on anyway.
Partway through, the designer suggested we add a bomb mechanic. I argued the game was fun enough and that we didn't have the time to implement it, but he went on ahead and created a button which was supposed to move a bomb to another player. However the other coder couldn't get the functionality to work in time and so we dropped the functionality, and I turned the bomb button into a very fancy reset button.
This game jam has convinced me not only that it is indeed possible to create a game in a crazily short amount of time, but also that simple games with a strong mechanic can be incredibly fun! And the game was so damn fun, there were three players and it got as hectic as I had hoped, with people employing all forms of tactics to win. Being the competitive person that I am, I had to make sure that I was the winner when challenged. This ended up being tested when one of the Abertay lecturers challenged me to a "hardcore mode". Instead of playing with your hands you had to play with your feet. Madness I thought as I tried to lift my foot high enough to reach the top button. Then the countdown sound played and I immediately focused into competitive mode. It was a fearsome challenge and the pain of the stretching required fortunately didn't hit me until after I won the race.
There was an article on Abertay's website with more details about the jam in general.
After the talk we ventured to another building and went up into the attic in search for anything that we could make a controller out of, something that could inspire use to make a fun experimental game. There were plenty of mundane items that suddenly appeared to have plenty of potential. I spotted an old corner shelf which laid horizontally, provided perfect spaces for installing buttons. However I thought about how that was perhaps me thinking too conventional and instead considered what options would be brought about by putting the shelf horizontal. I immediately started considering how fun and flustering it could be to have multiple people trying to access this thin shelf. There was room for 5 buttons, and there were conveniently 5 different button colours. I then proposed to our team the idea of creating a game similar to the horse races found in fairs, where players have to score points to move their horse along. The adaption would be that players had to press the colour displayed for them to move their character forward with the aim of crossing the finish line first. This jam was only to be 5 hours long, which seemed crazily short but we cracked on anyway.
Partway through, the designer suggested we add a bomb mechanic. I argued the game was fun enough and that we didn't have the time to implement it, but he went on ahead and created a button which was supposed to move a bomb to another player. However the other coder couldn't get the functionality to work in time and so we dropped the functionality, and I turned the bomb button into a very fancy reset button.
This game jam has convinced me not only that it is indeed possible to create a game in a crazily short amount of time, but also that simple games with a strong mechanic can be incredibly fun! And the game was so damn fun, there were three players and it got as hectic as I had hoped, with people employing all forms of tactics to win. Being the competitive person that I am, I had to make sure that I was the winner when challenged. This ended up being tested when one of the Abertay lecturers challenged me to a "hardcore mode". Instead of playing with your hands you had to play with your feet. Madness I thought as I tried to lift my foot high enough to reach the top button. Then the countdown sound played and I immediately focused into competitive mode. It was a fearsome challenge and the pain of the stretching required fortunately didn't hit me until after I won the race.
There was an article on Abertay's website with more details about the jam in general.
What Did I Actually Do?
I took part in a 5 hour game jam where we had to create experimental games that weren't limited to typical input mechanisms such as a keyboard/mouse or gamepad. I came up with the idea of creating a race similar to that of the horse racing games in amusement parks, where players need to score to move their racer forward. This idea was adapted for a shelf which lead to 3 players fumbling across each other frantically to try to win the race.