Global Game Jam

As last year, I took part in the local Global Game Jam chapter. As last year, we had about 48 hours to create a video game about a specific theme, revealed at the beginning of the jam. I took part with almost the same team as last year (kudos to them):

1. Eric and I would do the coding,
2. Chloé and Lionel would do the drawing,
3. Anthony would do the playing (both playing the game and sounds).

This time we were more prepared than last time: we met one week before the event to decide which kind of game we wanted to do. We wanted something with more motion and more immediate fun than our first game, Duel of Wizard. We wanted something where implementing a few rules and behavior would lead to something playable early, in order to be able to iterate.

We decided to do a shoot them up type of game, which are fun to play and dynamic. It would also be a good exercise in level / game design; designing the enemies, their patterns and the level around them would provide a nice break from just churning out code or assets. On the technical side we would be using Phaser again.

The result is Apocalypse Miaou, a game in where you play a lion and a tiger who fight against enemies ruining their forest. It is a bit too hard to finish, but it even features a boss! You can watch the end result below or you can playtest it online.

We learnt a lot about while creating Apocalypse Miaou, about game programming (behaviors and entities), game design (some enemy patterns are really hard to avoid), and music (the game music is the first time Anthony composed something). I would like to thank the Swiss Castle Jam Organizers, for this incredible event, and Anthony, Chloé and Lionel for hosting me.

See you next year!