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Burning Jazz: A Post Mortem
In Burning Jazz, you control three fire fighters as they attempt to extinguish flames in a burning house. It is a turn based game in which fire fighters can perform two actions per turn, then the fire gets a turn. Firefighters can move a space or spray water. They can break down walls and doors if needed, too. The fire's spread rate is based on the tile. Fire on hard wood spreads quickly, while stone walls take several turns before spreading their embers. There are also appliances in Burning Jazz. Appliances will explode if they catch fire, spreading more flames around the building. Lose all your fire fighters, or let too much of the house burn, and it is game over!
The initial concept was that you would play as the fire, or an arsonist setting fires, but when we further considered the theme of the 2019 Global Game Jam - home and what it means to you - we decided it would be better for players to control the hero.
While my team mates took on the role of writing the code to make our game work, I took the opportunity to practice some game art. We needed sprites for our 2D game: fire fighters, fires, piles of ash, burnt fire fighters, a toaster, and grass. The first two on the list were completed by another jammer, so I jumped on Google draw and began creating an 8-bit pile of ash. The team was impressed with my work, so I continued designing 8-bit sprites to put in our game.
I also took on the task of designing the first, and only, level:
It was disappointing, though, that I was not much help in the coding department. We made this game in 2D, a format I had zero experience with. Just getting one tile to detect the presence of another proved problematic for me. I was really hoping to learn more about coding. Instead, I learned just how much I do not know about coding, C#, and unity: alot! But I was not entirely useless. Another team wanted to take on the task of building a house boat game. They encountered some trouble with making their boat move and detect that the player has won. I showed the group leader how to use vector3 in unity, as well as how to use trigger volumes. Their game was far simpler in terms of mechanics, but I am glad I could help another group.
It was great to meet all the budding game designers, artists, and software developers at this event. Burning Jazz, named for the jazz music that plays in the background, is still very much in prototype/alpha, but you can download and play it in its current form here:
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