Hello folks. This is my first post on the GB boards. Here's the game I helped make:
The Last Friendship
http://www.whatwouldmolydeux.com/display.php?GameID=200
We plan on polishing it a bit more, as some things still need tweaking or fixing, but this is essentially the game idea we cooked up in our heads Friday night. With another day or two of work, it will be even better.
I'm glad to see some other Molyjammers here. I was part of a four person team here in Seattle. We were not at the Seattle Molyjam headquarters, though, since two of our team members flew in from out of town (LA and SF) and got in late Friday night. The rest of the team was comprised of myself and my room mate, and we decided it would be easiest to hunker down in our house to make our game.
We spent a few hours late Friday and into Saturday discussing ideas and trying to sort out which one we liked the most. Saturday was a very long day, but by the end we had about 85% of what would be in the final game. Sunday was mostly just polishing, working out the game play, and making sure you could install and run it. Our team was comprised of two artists, one programmer, and me as the sound/music guy. Once we got started, though, the division of labor became extremely murky, with everyone pitching in ideas on the game play, level design, and art. The final game would not have been what it is without the input of every single person on the team. I think that is the most valuable thing I got out of Molyjam. I've been in the game industry for a few years now, but always been on a very large team. It was really refreshing to be able to contribute ideas and make decisions outside of your normal area of expertise, and the fact that the four of us respected each other enough to consider each other's opinions and ideas valid, even if it meant superseding your own idea, made for a great creative environment and ultimately a better game.
We ended up using UDK because we wanted the game to be 3D, and two of the folks on the team had experience using the Unreal engine several years ago. I had minimal experience with UDK, but had wanted to learn it for some time. Just downloading it and poking around in it is the fast track to disappointment. Having such a hard deadline meant I could go in and learn exactly what I needed to to make the game sound the way I wanted without getting lost in the myriad of options the engine presents you. It's a much better way to learn, and it's given me some ideas on how to use it for other projects in the future.
Overall, I had so much fun making our game. I wanted to make a small, independent game for some time. It can be hard to get the right team together, not just in regards to talent but also to motivation. While not sleeping, not leaving the house, and only eating crappy food for 48 hours is not the ideal circumstances in which to make a game, I think there's value in forcing yourself to be creative under extreme limitations. I made some new friends (the out of towners were friends of my room mate), and made something I'm happy with. I hope to do more game jams in the future.
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