November 2020 - Box Co: Next Day Delivery

My first 48 game jam experience!

A couple of weeks ago, myself and Daniel Scott-Wilson took part in a 48 hour game jam, called then Mix and Game Jam. The theme of which was "Mixing Genres". We decided to go with the genres first person and tower defence.

My role?

As my partner could handle all of the blueprinting for the project within the space of 48 hours, I took on the role as designer and artist for the game. This meant that I was responsible for designing the core mechanics and schemas for the game, as well as the level and so fourth. After that was done, I began modelling all of the models that you can see in the game. This also involved assigning material ids to all of the models so that they could be textured within Unreal Engine using the material editor. This hastened the modelling and texturing process heaps as there was no need to do a proper unwrap of the model, and there was no need to use Photoshop to create the texture maps for the models. 

Outcome.

Personally, I believe that this jam has led to a solid foundation for a potential future project. It is *sorta* fun as is, but with another two days, and especially with a proper development cycle, this idea of a first person tower defense game could be something special. I had ideas for the player to have a lot more movement capabilities, and for the core gameplay loop to be about avoiding enemies whilst moving around elevated terrain to gather resources to make more turrets, but alas there wasn't enough time. 

However! We still managed to secure 2nd place for gameplay, and 4th for creativity! As a designer, I have to say that these rankings really mean a lot, as it validates my efforts both in design and scope.