Game Jam - 002
Theme: Mental Health
Brief
Introduction
For our drop-down week, we have been given a day-long game jam. During this Game Jam, we aimed to make a game hitting the topic of mental illness. We had to come up with a game that talks about a specific mental health condition and explains the struggles that come with mental health. Our idea was to make a world-switching game where the player wishes to mirror the real-world disorder DID.
The Idea
Other Side is a multiplayer puzzle platformer game confronting the topic of DID.
The players switch between different personas, each with a different take on the world.
With this, the players must solve puzzles using different perspectives. The players will not be able to communicate with each other, so they will have to use their surroundings to communicate.
Together, they must solve puzzles, but the world will change every time the character switches.
This will represent the struggle of having multiple personalities and will tie into real-world struggles.
The players will not be able to communicate with each other, so they will have to use their surroundings to communicate. Together, they must solve puzzles, but the world will change every time the character switches. This will represent the struggle of having multiple personalities and will tie into real-world struggles.
My Role
For the most part in this game jam, I was in charge of a good chunk of the idea as well as coming up with mechanics and gameplay loops. I also made the PowerPoint for the presentation so I did a majority of the written work. for the mechanics, I came up with the basic ideas like the level switching and world perspective shifting but they were later expanded on by Mitchell. For the gameplay loop I made a flow chart showing the planned loop. I did with the aid of my team but mostly by myself just checking with them to ensure we are all happy with it.
Team Experience
My overall team experience was good. My team was helpful and took control of the tasks they were set. Not only did my team manage their work, but they also had input over the entire project like a team should. I feel that Alex, Kyle and Mitchell work very well together and can come up with ideas and flow well with me. The areas they could have been stronger in are the allocation of tasks. I feel like they could have worked a bit on the written side and wrote the parts on the things they did. Not only so they have a better idea of what they have done but would also allow them to explain their prosses.
Final Thoughts
There are not many areas I really feel we missed in this game jam. As mentioned above we could have allocated tasks better in our group but overall I am very happy with the result. This game jam idea is my favorite idea so far and I feel we fit the brief well. The idea of the world switching around the player is creative and has not been done many times before.
The Power Point
Team
Kyle's blog: Team - Second Game Jam
Alex's blog: Alex's Portfolio
Mitchell's blog: Team - Mental Health Game Jam