Splash Jam - ARDO (February 2016)
While browsing twitter, I came across something someone had retweeted. It talked about doing a game jam on a boat in Norway, for those who can't make it to the Train Jam that takes people to GDC. I'm incredibly jealous of those who are able to do the train jam. Besides it selling out almost immediately, it's also outside of what I can afford. This boat jam however was surprisingly cheap. It was also starting up in the Arctic circle, and as a space geek I've always wanted to see the northern lights. Could this jam be legitimate? Spoiler: yes it can and was!
So I kept my eye on the "Splash Jam" and when tickets came on sale I bought one. It seemed pretty straight forward to me, but after purchase I saw all hell break loose on Twitter. It turned out to be in very high demand and I was really fortunate to manage to get a ticket!
So I was off to Norway! The new year beforehand had taken me to Tōkyō, the furthest East I'd ever been and now this jam would take me the furthest North I've ever been.
During the kick-off party held at Flow in Tromsø, we were given the theme: "Beginnings". Before we all started coming up with ideas, Tim Garbos got us to try to clear the cliché ideas. It was a fun atmosphere and eventually I came across a couple who were chatting. I was on the hunt for an artist and possibly a designer as I wanted to work in a team for this jam. These two happened to be exactly those roles. They were talking through an idea which they shared with me and I was immediately on board with. Their take on the theme was to look at what it can be like for someone who has moved to a new place with a new culture which they must grow accustomed to. This was a particularly personal game for the designer, Gemma, who had moved to Sweden with her husband from the UK. The anxiety that can be felt when you don't feel competent amongst a new land was something that we had all experienced at some point.
So we started brainstorming ways that we can communicate this to players. While it's a great concept, and one that we all appeared to be passionate about, we had to keep in mind that it was a game jam and so we had to cut back some of the ambitions. We felt like the language aspect was really important and so worked on what we thought we could pull of with that. We ended up running with using the conveniently symbolic DualShock controller face buttons as the 4 symbols that make up the language. Similar to other languages, there would also be two different versions for each symbol; extended vowels similar to "ō", and accented marks which would change the inclination on the pronunciation, such as changing from an "oo" sound to an "oh" sound. The final thing that we ended up with didn't end up incorporating these however.
While what we were working on was still ambitious for a 48 hour game jam, we'd come to learn that it was really more of a 24 hour game jam. Without close competition, the surrounding scenery of Norway is the most beautiful I've jammed alongside. Too beautiful to pass up regular breaks to go outside and admire. Another, less pleasing, reason for the reduced jam time was when the rougher seas hit. At these points I learnt that I do indeed suffer from seasickness. The only option was to lie down and try to sleep through it. There were other reasons for reduced time, such as trying Cod liver oil and a Norwegian fish that had been dried out for months and then was broken up using an axe, and more plesantly, the beautiful food we were served. Good value for money doesn't even come close to the experience that the organisers, Henriette Myrlund and Runa Haukland, had managed to put together.
So sadly, we weren't able to put together something as comprehensive as we had initially envisioned. We were however satisfied with what we did have, with it acting as a good tech demo of what such an experience could do.
It had a good initial reception when we arrived back on land in Work Work in Trondheim. Similarly I've experience positive responses from people I have shown it to. What the game could be is something I think is best left to a bigger, more capable team - it's not something I could do in my spare time at the weekend as it would take up all of my time. I hope the idea finds a hold in some form in the future as I am confident it's an experience that would be helpful for many people and make others think about something that they otherwise might not have thought about.
The game is available for download from here, and I've uploaded a video of myself playing it on vimeo.
So I kept my eye on the "Splash Jam" and when tickets came on sale I bought one. It seemed pretty straight forward to me, but after purchase I saw all hell break loose on Twitter. It turned out to be in very high demand and I was really fortunate to manage to get a ticket!
So I was off to Norway! The new year beforehand had taken me to Tōkyō, the furthest East I'd ever been and now this jam would take me the furthest North I've ever been.
During the kick-off party held at Flow in Tromsø, we were given the theme: "Beginnings". Before we all started coming up with ideas, Tim Garbos got us to try to clear the cliché ideas. It was a fun atmosphere and eventually I came across a couple who were chatting. I was on the hunt for an artist and possibly a designer as I wanted to work in a team for this jam. These two happened to be exactly those roles. They were talking through an idea which they shared with me and I was immediately on board with. Their take on the theme was to look at what it can be like for someone who has moved to a new place with a new culture which they must grow accustomed to. This was a particularly personal game for the designer, Gemma, who had moved to Sweden with her husband from the UK. The anxiety that can be felt when you don't feel competent amongst a new land was something that we had all experienced at some point.
So we started brainstorming ways that we can communicate this to players. While it's a great concept, and one that we all appeared to be passionate about, we had to keep in mind that it was a game jam and so we had to cut back some of the ambitions. We felt like the language aspect was really important and so worked on what we thought we could pull of with that. We ended up running with using the conveniently symbolic DualShock controller face buttons as the 4 symbols that make up the language. Similar to other languages, there would also be two different versions for each symbol; extended vowels similar to "ō", and accented marks which would change the inclination on the pronunciation, such as changing from an "oo" sound to an "oh" sound. The final thing that we ended up with didn't end up incorporating these however.
While what we were working on was still ambitious for a 48 hour game jam, we'd come to learn that it was really more of a 24 hour game jam. Without close competition, the surrounding scenery of Norway is the most beautiful I've jammed alongside. Too beautiful to pass up regular breaks to go outside and admire. Another, less pleasing, reason for the reduced jam time was when the rougher seas hit. At these points I learnt that I do indeed suffer from seasickness. The only option was to lie down and try to sleep through it. There were other reasons for reduced time, such as trying Cod liver oil and a Norwegian fish that had been dried out for months and then was broken up using an axe, and more plesantly, the beautiful food we were served. Good value for money doesn't even come close to the experience that the organisers, Henriette Myrlund and Runa Haukland, had managed to put together.
So sadly, we weren't able to put together something as comprehensive as we had initially envisioned. We were however satisfied with what we did have, with it acting as a good tech demo of what such an experience could do.
It had a good initial reception when we arrived back on land in Work Work in Trondheim. Similarly I've experience positive responses from people I have shown it to. What the game could be is something I think is best left to a bigger, more capable team - it's not something I could do in my spare time at the weekend as it would take up all of my time. I hope the idea finds a hold in some form in the future as I am confident it's an experience that would be helpful for many people and make others think about something that they otherwise might not have thought about.
The game is available for download from here, and I've uploaded a video of myself playing it on vimeo.
What Did I Actually Do?
Spent 48 hours on a cruise ship going from Tromsø in the Arctic circle down to Trondheim. I worked together with a designer, artist and two audio producers to create a game based around the feelings of anxiety that can be experienced when you're in a new place with an unfamiliar culture and language.