Brackeys Game Jam 2021.2: Let There Be Chaos!
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In a couple of weeks, game design club would be starting up at ISU and I thought that doing the jam would not only be a good way to review working with Unity Engine, but also show off some of my prior knowledge to the club. I didn't end up making anything spectacular but I think my game was pretty decent with all things considered. Plus, it allowed me to join the club's "challenge project team" (a smaller group within the club that worked on a separate game from the main group). In this team, I worked on a game that was finished at the end of the semester (will talk about this in another post) and am currently working on another game as a part of the same group.
Here's a link to the game jam game: https://orbitalrock.itch.io/the-world-tends-toward-chaos
The Jam: Overview
The official page for this game jam can be found here: https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-6
A game jam is essentially a timed competition where participants create a game. Game jams can vary in length, but this particular jam was seven days long. Teams were allowed for this jam, and you could also use any assets you wanted (as long as you had proper licenses to use them). After the creation phase, participants then rated other games that were created in the jam based on a variety of categories (Game Design, Fun, Innovation, Theme, Graphics, and Audio).
One last thing to note, we had to base our games around a theme. The theme titled Let There Be Chaos was revealed to us at the starting date of the jam.
The Jam: Planning Phase
Once the jam started on Sunday, my goal for the jam that day was to simply have a plan for what I was going to create. I figured that I should take some time to come up with a fun and fitting idea.
So, I spent a decent portion of the day debating different possibilities and eventually settled on one that I liked, was adaptable, and was do-able given the time frame. The gist of my idea was an endless top-down shooter where the rules would be constantly changing. In addition, the frequency at which the game would change would increase overtime.
In my game there isn't any gravity and the player is able to move freely in any direction, but I imagined adding random events that would do things, like add gravity for example. Then there could be events that would change the direction of gravity, tilt the entire map itself, etc.
In addition, I imagined there being a wide amount of random objects that could be spawned within the map: walls, bullet-reflecting walls, teleporters, launch pads, black holes, etc.
To top things off, I envisioned a wide variety of enemy types. Like an angry red polygon that would chase you around, a green polygon that would also chase you around (but shoot stuff at you), and random stuff like a wizard polygon--that would attack you in over-the-top ways (spawning portals, explosions, bullet-reflecting walls, etc.).
Now, in the end I was not able to add all of this, but I was able to create a framework in which all of this could be eventually added.
The Jam: Creation Phase
After coming up with my plan for the game, it was time to actually create the game. I more or less added things to the game in this order:
1. Player Mechanics
-Movement
-Rotating weapon around player
-Spawning projectiles
-Taking damage
2. Melee enemies
-Taking damage
-Enemy health-bars
3. Enemy AI
- Moving around walls
- Attacking the player
4. The map
- Boundaries
- Walls
5. 4-directional turret/enemy
- Spawning projectiles in timed volleys
- Rotating at set intervals
6. The random event system
- Spawning enemies in random locations on the map
- Spawning random explosions near the player
- Spawning indicators so that the player has some warning
- Increasing the frequency of events as time goes on
- Using a lot of coroutines
7. User Interface
- Health-bar
- Stamina-bar
- Timer
- Time scale indicator
8. Power-ups
- Damage power-up
- Fire rate power-up
- Health power-up
9. Menus
- Main menu
- Game Over screen
By the time I finished the game, it was pretty down to the wire. After adding as many things to the game as I could, I had to race against the clock to add in a menu-system -- which is pretty important for a game. Luckily, I was able to get the menu finished just-in-time, 13 minutes before the 5 am deadline.
Though, the next day I realized I had been missing some simple quality of life features. I was running down the clock, but honestly I wasn't even thinking about adding a pause menu. In future jam games I think I'll go for slightly more polish, making sure I have things like sound, pause menus, etc...
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