Interstellar Game Jam 4#

The Interstellar Game Jam 4 was a 5-day game jam with the theme of ‘Another Dimension’ I took part in.

I previously took part in Interstellar Game Jam 3, which you can find in the related post here.

Theme and Ideas#

Unlike the last theme, this one was far easier to work with. The simple option is to have the player switch dimensions.

The only other idea I was tempted to go with was to have the player switch between 2D and 3D space. Which I didn’t risk going for as I could not think of a functional implementation that would work.

To try and push myself this time. I decided to create a 3D game instead of a 2D one which in game jams is usually the goto for most developers as it’s much easier to create a game quickly as drawing sprites has always been a much quicker process as well as animation being far simpler to add as opposed to 3D. This meant that the level I would create would need to use a limited selection of 3D assets and reuse them. Otherwise, I would spend a long time making the visuals and not working on the gameplay.

Gameplay#

The game I chose to go with was a fast-paced delivery game in which the player would have to quickly deliver packages to target buildings and try and deliver the most packages possible before running out of time. To stay on theme, I had a mechanic where the player would switch between two versions of the world to get around obstacles.

I started off with the player controller and I decided to go with a fast-moving FPS controller which I even added a dash to though it wasn’t actually required as I didn’t have time to add gameplay that required it which was definitely a missed opportunity.

Afterwards, I blocked out both dimensions and added the dimension switch mechanic. This came with an issue I found immediately after testing. Which is to check the player wasn’t inside a wall or prop.

Art#

I chose to go with a cartoon style by using simple colours and low poly assets which made a nice aesthetic.

I made some additional props in the same style to help make the world more interesting.

In retrospect, one change that I feel was needed to help sell this aesthetic is to use toon/cel shading and an outline shader to make it feel more like a cartoon or comic book. This I believe would have helped the visuals significantly as it feels cheap without it.

UI#

The in-game UI of this game definitely needed to be redone as it felt incredibly out of place except for the timer.

The RPG quest waypoint bar was possibly the worst culprit of this. While functionally it was useful as it made navigating the world far simpler. But the implementation could have been different. Alternatively, a waypoint beam that goes into the sky that the player can see over the buildings would be a better solution. Or even just having an outline of the target building that the player can see through walls.

The timer and information block, while not sticking out as badly. Still needed cleaning up which would have been avoided by doing some iterations of the UI design.

The main menu on the other hand was by far much better.

The only thoughts against this would be to do some further design iterations of the UI elements rather than solid white blocks.

Conclusion#

The game was a success in comparison to my previous IGJ entry. Ranking 28th out of the 44 games that were entered.

When looking into the rating breakdown I scored around 3/5 for gameplay and overall fun. But the real killer of my submission’s performance was the visuals followed by sound with 2/5.

In future game jams, I will definitely spend more time researching the art style I want to do as well as doing multiple iterations of the in-game UI. A challenge to myself in a future jam is to focus much more on the audio rather than making it an afterthought like many fellow developers taking part.