Those of you who know me may have noticed that I was online much less this weekend – and this was because of the Global Games Jam! For those of you who don’t know what the GGJ is, this is the website. It’s a 48 hour global event, where teams from around the world create games and break creative barriers based on a specific theme. For the first time ever a Jam ran near me – and so off I went with my bag of snacks and laptop to the Staffs Games Academy running site, which was in the Games Design labs at my university 
Across the 48 hours there was much fun had, many pizzas eaten, and lots of crazy sleep deprivation – but maybe best of all was how much we all learnt, how we surprised ourselves with what we could acomplish in such a short time, and how many awesome friends we could make if we took a risk and were in groups with people we wouldn’t normally work with.
Here is an awesome picture of alllll the people who turned up for the weekend – a really surprising and awesome turnout 
And ofc here is the most awesome team of all – the Orange Team!
There were lots of arguments to be had over what the exact type of game we would create would be – there was a severe divide in the group as some wanted to do a side scroller, some wanted to do a point and click, and some wanted to do something very similar to UT3. One thing we did decide on was the fact that we would use the UDK, since we didn’t have a designated programmer in our group, and we were all used to using the engine before.
After a couple of hours of whiteboard brainstorming and heated debates from some people, we finally rested on a compromise – a side scrolling multiplayer race, created in UT3 but with custom characters.
The name for our game was Chibi Chasers - an amazing idea from me of course, since yknow, they’re chibi, and they’re chasing… and it sounds like chubby chasers!! Ahaha I’m a genious..
We never really thought of this at the time, but after comments from people afterwards, yes, I suppose our game mechanics are a little like Mario Kart – apart from the obvious like you’re not in a Kart and you aren’t Mario XD
The theme for this year’s Jam was “Deception” and it was very interesting to see how everyone would interpret this differently. The way we incorporated this into the game was the fact that the player would have to decept the other players into running into traps they had set, which would then be triggered and have one of many negative effects on them. Another constraint for the game was that in each time zone, a certain item had to be included in the game. For our time zone, the things which had to be included were a Sink, Rink or a Wink. This was open to interpretation, although most people just included a sink as an easter egg in their level. As part of our level, one of the traps set off an icy floor trap, which would slow the other players. This was our way of incorporating a Rink, as in an ice rink
Here is a little video from Youtube filmed by Nia – introducing all of the groups from Staffs Games Academy 
The first thing that we needed to sort out was the side scrolling, since that was the thing which was most different from the original engine. This proved to be a little bit more of a problem than we originally anticipated, since the actual mechanic worked fine, but getting the camera to follow the player properly, especially in the multiplayer modes.
So we needed lots of books and DVDs and stuff >.<
Here is a video of all the intial game ideas, again filmed by the lovely Nia
After some decision making, we decided on a basic story, which would be something around the theme of four factions racing after an object of power, which would then give that faction the advantage in the overall power-struggle. This is why all the characters are racing to get to the end of each level, and attempting to use the traps to stop the other players getting there first.
The four characters are somewhat loosely based on the four elements to represent the four factions.
These are:
- Credo – Credo is a spaceman. He represents the “Air” element.
- Stuane – Stuane is a rock elemental. He represents the “Rock” element.
- Jimbo – Jimbo is an Eskimo. He represents the “Water” element.
- And last but not least – Oswald – Oswald is a fire demon. He represents the “Fire” element.
(Some concept art for the fire demon, ensuring he fits to the Epic Rig whilst still maintaining the chibi elements of the character.)
Therefore in the character customization screen the player would select the character that they want to play as, and so which faction they want to represent. There were no weapons in our game, and so the mouse click became a trap activation button, when the player walks over certain runes in the game and clicks, it will set a trap for the other player. This can also include other elements of deception such as the setting of fake platforms which have no collision model, causing the player to fall to their doom should they be fooled by these traps.
Overall the game wasn’t finished – but a prototype was created which provides a great example of what the game could be – which at the end of the day was the aim of the event.
There was a list of achievements that you could score extra points by incorporating, and we did aim to complete the one which stated that all music had to be created using body parts, and although the piece was recorded we didn’t manage to get it into the engine on time. Overall lots of Relentless was drank, and many sleeps were needed once we had finished. We were in E6 so long without even looking out of a window that we didnt even realise it was snowing until the Sunday:
Here is a video of the last 5 mins of the Jam, with some awesomely clever musical timing:
And here is our brain storming/organisation for the weekend (complete with Awesome Board and Moan Board)
And finally here is us uploading our game to the GGJ website at 3pm on Sunday!
It was soooo much fun, I really can’t wait till next year, it’ll be amazing!
Any of you that can make it to one, I would really recommend it – it’s hard work and tiring, but totally worth it and I’ve learnt so much! Only difference is, next year I’ll probably bring a sleeping bag so I wont have to walk home at 5am again for 2 hours sleep XD
AHH it was soo good
And the craziness that ensues after 23048230498 cans of Relentless and no sleep for two nights just cannot be missed
So yeah, see you next year if you can make it
Peace, Love and Chibi Chasers
xxx
