In this, our first game jam, we are being judged on the following criteria.
Your game will be judged via these criteria :
- Design (playability, fun, gameplay ideas)
- Graphics (sprites, models, vfx, ambiance)
- Audio (music, sound effects)
- Originality (have you seen that before)
- Theme (adherence to theme)
We have 48 hours to design and create an original game that is actually playable. Here is what we came up with!
(submitted our game with 4+ hours to spare)
Gemini Taurus gave us a 20/25 for our game!
72 participants began the competition
21 made it to the end and submitted a playable game
Of those 21, we ranked
#7
in overall totals
We came in #1 in Theme category
and #2 in the Originality category!!!
Absolute Zero as a prompt
In our brainstorming, chemistry is the one thing that kept coming up. We decided to make a puzzle game by using the elements and their freezing/melting points.
We looked up each element, created icons & prefabs for them with each of their freezing points.
Ducky has to move along the path set for him. You get to control the temperature in the room. Ducky cannot collide with any of the atoms. They will move faster the warmer the room gets, and slower the colder the room gets. If you reach the freezing point of a particular molecule, it will stop moving.
Your job is to keep them off of the path as Ducky moves through it. Once Ducky begins to move, he will not stop until he collides with a molecule or reaches the end of the room safely.
Ducky's Great Escape
What else would you name a game about a lab duck who has to escape from an evil mad scientist?
This quasi-educational game includes the accurate freezing/melting points of each element, as well as the relative size of each element is set as well. Therefore, you will see Helium is much smaller than Cesium!
If we continue to make this game, we will add all the elements (we currently only have 58, with about 12 in play). We would add more levels with additional complexities. We would also change the size of some elements (like Mercury) that increase/decrease their size based on the temperature.
Our process involves a large whiteboard!
We used a large whiteboard to organize and collect our thoughts, task lists and ideas. It was erased and rewritten with new content each time we completed everything on the board.
Our drawing skills leave something to be desired, but we managed to decode them!
In this first whiteboard iteration, we wrote the prompt (Absolute Zero) and then brainstormed ideas of what we thought of when we heard it.
Once we have that, we can decide on a game or app idea that matches it.
What does the game need? What should we code in next?
What do we want to do if we have enough time, but can wait if we do not?
Third iteration of our board. Things are starting to get crossed off!
Here we are in action!
Our development team consists of 3 people; Kettler, Alin and Jennifer.
Here Kettler is adding in directions so that our players know what to do!
Our game is being built in Unity.
Primary coder, Alin, hard at work!
No coding session would be complete without tea! This developer is almost never without a cup!
How we made our assets
This game jam required us to make everything in the game ourselves. The only prefab thing we could use was font. So we had to create all the sprites, music, sound fx, and backgrounds ourselves.
We developed the game music using Incredibox, artwork (game assets, sprites, etc) using Photoshop, soundfx using https://www.bfxr.net/. We also used piskel.com for game sprites like the ducky and our mad scientist.
(We own our copies of Incredibox and Photoshop) Game engine = Unity
Using Incredibox to design some game music was so fun that I almost forgot and played only with the app!
Piskel is a great website to make awesome sprites in pixel format!
Photoshop is a very useful tool to make images look icy!
What say you?
Interested?
Should we continue development of this game?
Want to give it a try?
Download our 10 level Ducky's Great Escape game.
This is the game we submitted for our entry.
