Global Game Jam 2024
- Fabio Pereira
- Feb 2, 2024
- 3 min read
Links
Game exe and Unreal project files.
Overview
Me and five others participated in the Global Game Jam, site hosted by our uni, and we had five days to make a game. Normally I'm with a level designer/artiest who want to make a big map or multiple levels, but this time I convinced the team to make a small, polished game around one core mechanic.
This game jam turned into one of my best and I'm proud to have made an addictive and polished gameplay loop that many said was fun and looked professional.
My Responsibilities
Gameplay Designer
The theme was announced on Saturday, but even before that I did more research into Game Design Documents, and I created one for the Jam focused on making a simple core mechanics and getting everyone on the same page. When the Jam started, we hoped on Miro and started iterating on the design. We kept the core Spear and customer mechanics, but I helped the artiest find references and designing the level. We used AI Images and drew on pictures to illustrate and diagram ideas.
Producer
I also took the role of producer to manage tasks and keep on top of who was doing what and has been completed. It was also my responsibility to identify feature creep, say no to things, and organise tasks with priority so I could cut content closer to deadline.
After pitching the game idea and shutting down ideas if i though it was feature creep, I worked harder and longer to ensure the game jam would be successful as I didn't want to force all this on the others and still fail - I wouldn't want to work with this person again if that happened to me. For example, on Thursday i worked till 3:30 AM and then got up 8AM to get the audio in, and all the way to the 3PM deadline. I continued developing in the weekend after the game jam to implement updates to the game loop and integrate analytics.
Developer
Implemented Spear throwing mechanic and customer system. Unfortunately, the customers was bit too tricky for my teammate, but I suggested that they look over the code and ask any question to learn.
Maintained folder structure and naming standards.
Implemented idle and throwing animations.
Made level Blockout.
Found and implemented audio SFX.
Looked into reducing the package size by targeting the maps we needed and excluding editor assets, but this barely reduced the size.
Optimized levels by making meshes static, disabling dynamic shadows, and adding importance volumes for building all levels.
Game Pitch
Mechanics: things we need to implement.
Anti-features: things we're never going to do.
Objectives: what the player is going to do.
Post-gameplay redesigns
Watching people play the game was interesting: they didn't know you could move, walk in the water, or interact with the customers - all these things felt painfully obvious to us. Even when i drew out controls on paper and placed it on the keyboard and in front of the screen, they didn't see / read it!!
I redesigned the happiness system to start from zero and your objective is to fill it up to win; this meant i removed the failing state from the game which caused frustration and confusion when they were first learning what to do.
Adding Analytics
I added game stat analytics to record how many spear were thrown, fish were killed, orders completed, games completed. I used GameAnalytics as the Controller. It's a free service with an Unreal Plugin that makes it super simple to implement. So far, 219 spears have been thrown and 88 fish have been speared.
Tools
Unity Version Control
I've used Github + Github Desktop, Bitbucket + Sourcetree, Github + Sourcetree, Perforce in Uni, and UVS.
UVS, in my opinion, is a perfect revision control solution for Unreal. It has task branched, file locking, three-way conflict resolution, super fast, and way cheaper than perforce.
It worked flawlessly for this game jam. It allows me to manage the source control, as most teammates don't use it and some don't use source control, with complete confidence and security.
I've been using the task-branch workflow, but moving forward I'll try to add release brunches to my workflow.
Miro
Continues to be an invaluable tool during development. Having a space to draw and paste/overlay images to make prototype art / illustrations / diagrams.
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