Whenever I find the time, I like to experiment with types of Game Design outside my usual work by participating in game jams. Recently, I decided to dip specifically more into Level and general Game Design.
“The Traveller’s Eight” – 2D World & Level Design
If you’d like to experience the game in its current WIP state, you can find it hosted here.
For AdventureJam 2023 I wanted to make a 2D-platformer to stand out from the competition that typically makes Point & Click games every year. I really wanted us to emulate the exploration feeling I got when playing Terraria for the first time, with this big seamless world that had biomes bleeding into each other and dungeons to explore in each. What we created was The Traveller’s Eight, a 2D platforming exploration game set on a near-deserted and destitute pirate island. My time in the jam was spent working with the lead designer on the world, its puzzles and minigames, and the unique platforming elements that would appear in each area.
⬡ Time length for project: ~40 hours
⬡ Role(s) with project: Level designer, Game designer, Writer
⬡ Team Size: 2 artists, 2 programmers, 2 musicians, 2 writers
⬡ Programs Used: Unity
“Stay” – Game & Puzzle Design
The current build can be downloaded and played from here.
The SummerSlowJam: Narrative came with an assigned theme of ‘Doomsday’. That prompt and our team’s artist’s incredible skill for drawing animals inspired us to explore what it would be like for a house pet to be trapped in their owner’s home during an apocalypse. Grim, but hopefully very engaging.
Unlike my time with previous jams, I decided to try stepping up into a Lead Designer position for this game and try coordinating the full development experience. What we came up with was ‘Stay’, a point-and-click adventure game about surviving and (eventually) escaping from a home you are trapped in as a house pet, immune to whatever strange doomsday seems to have killed off all human life. I spent the rest of my time designing the ‘levels’ we would have for the game, focusing on how to reuse the same small space but create variety in exploring it. One element of the environment I experimented with was essentially the diegetic application of a ‘rule of threes’ approach to writing; as the player would be trying to meet the same basic goals as each week went by I designed a kind of punchline every time the player achieved something on the last level.
⬡ Time length for project: ~72 hours
⬡ Role(s) with project: Level designer, Level Designer
⬡ Team Size: 1 artist, 1 programmer, 2 musicians, 1 designer
⬡ Programs Used: GameMaker Studio