My first game jam… You won’t believe how well I did!

I know. The suspense is almost too much to bear. So I’ll cut to it… I got 4th place in my very first game jam!

Game Develop Month is a month-long game development challenge, where each participant is tasked with building a game during the month of April. It’s hosted by James Doyle, Udemy instructor and YouTuber at gamesplusjames.

From this came Under the Ice. A story about Amie Ashwood: a young girl tasked with warning her fellow villagers of an impending invading force. But when she and her father crash their sled on the way to the next nearest village, Amie finds herself in Naga’s territory. A great wolf spirit, Naga does not take kindly to trespassers and tests all those that would enter. Does Amie have what it takes to help her father, pass Naga’s test, and warn her fellow northerners?

And can she face the truth?

What folks have said:

“Really well done mini-metroidvania! I loved the story and dialogue between characters, had me hooked the whole journey.” - Keltfire, itch.io

“This was a very polished game, and I was very lucky to have played it! I loved the story and the combat! The final battle was especially exhilarating.” - Langi Tuifua, itch.io

“Damn that was awesome!! Very well done, particularly the story, difficulty pacing (fun to learn and punish enemy attack patterns) and great music too!” - CatPasta, itch.io

There were so many lessons learned in this last month but here are some quick takeaways:

1. Scope! Scope was everything in this jam. I hit my milestones each week and I was really able to spend time polishing and I think players really appreciated that.
2. SIMPLE ENEMIES. I had three enemy types. Two of those enemy types had three attacks each… three! Two of which were standard attacks. Simple melee attacks in between what I would call “special” attacks. I found that narrowing down their attack options to just their special attacks really defined the strategy for that enemy. And when I combined those enemies, they synergized in a more satisfying way.
3. Virtual Cameras… The meat of the game is one large map that I segmented with different cameras. I believe by the end, there were 22 different cameras. And then special event cameras as well. Managing all these cameras ended up being a huge amount of time. While the camera to camera motion and connectivity really works, I can’t help but wonder if smaller, more confined scenes would have been more efficient and just as effective. Moving forward, I’ll definitely consider how scenes will be arranged.

That’s it for now. Thank you so much for reading and for following me on this journey. Please check out Under the Ice on itch.io and let me know what you think!

Thanks,

Andrew