Game Jam - 003

Brief

For this game jam, our main challenge was to create a  game that used only one button for the controls. This limitation was to strive for creativity in both gameplay and controls. We had only to stick to this so we could do anything else with the game. There was no limitation on the audience and there was no key feature we had to add. The limitation of one button is definitely a hard one but fuels a lot of creativity.

The Story

In the distant future, all the power flowing through the streets powering the city has ceased, leading to a catastrophic downfall. As the people scrambled to survive and fights broke across the city, one family strived to survive and protect their newborn child. Years later, after setting up a safe house, a large crash is heard coming from in the house. Awoken by the noise, the father goes to investigate. Hearing the crash emanating from his daughter's room, he rushes to see a group of bandits riding off with his daughter, leaving a ransom note. Enraged at the kidnapping of his daughter and the unpayable ransom, he and his wife go on a journey to rescue his daughter. 

The Game Stages

The game will be split into three parts, two driving scenes and one protecting/defending scene.​

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• Journey to save their child while getting attacked by bandits.​

• Defending their child as waves of enemies come in. ​

• Chase scene where bandits chase after

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

In the game jam, we had to create teams. I decided to team up with Kyle, Mitchell, Alex, and Zak. We had the task of making a one-button game. Through this project, I feel we all worked well as a team. To start, Zak took a role in giving basic ideas of how a single button in a game can work. Zak also looked at other games that followed a similar idea. After Zak picked his idea, I went to work adding more complexity to his idea. I also began working on the story. Alex and Kyle took my idea and started making models of some of the game layouts and some of the scenes. While they were doing this, Michell was working on some of the mechanics and I helped with some of the controls.

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 favourite idea so far and I feel we fit the brief well. The story of the game is creative and I really enjoyed the rest of the concept.