Days 20-22: Global Game Jam

Well, I kinda forgot to post during the weekend, but I attended the Global Game Jam. Specifically the local jam in Tampere. The event was very well organized and we had lots of fun. Our group was three people: Vilma Pekola as our visual artist, Juhani Hujala as our game designer, and myself as the programmer.

We went with a sort of mix of 2D and 3D for the visual style. The game is in three dimensions with perspective, but all the graphics in the game are flat, like a pop-up book. The game was put together using the Unity 3D engine. Most of the code is in C#, but some of it is Javascript. I think Unity helped a lot in putting the game together. We got some of the core elements into the game in just a few hours. The most interesting part code-wise for me was probably the string with the lanterns. I started out trying to make it a physical chain of little nodes, but it had problems, because the string would fall to the ground or act up when pulled around corners. The way I ended up implementing it is to just have the string and lanterns floating in the air, but I did attach them to spring joints so that they would sway a little, like wind was moving them. Another cool thing I added was to make the buildings turn translucent when you walked past them. That way you could still see what you were doing when you were behind a building. In retrospect I should had probably made that effect even stronger, but it works decently well even as it is.

The game is quite short and simple, but then that’s usually what you get when you have a 48h time limit. I’m very happy with the result though, as it is a complete game, and not missing any necessary features. When you’re working quickly like this, there’s always a high chance that you end up not having the time to implement some crucial thing, or that something breaks at the last minute.

The game is playable at: http://heygods.pekuja.com/

The game’s page at the GGJ site is at: http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/hey-gods-follow-light