Global Game jam 2018
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After starting this Game Design course at Uppsala University, among the 3 game jams that I have taken part in, the last one held at the end of January was the most interesting to me. Even before taking game design course as a major, I heard a lot about these game jams where people in groups work together to make games on the same given theme. I used to think people who take part in these events were really experienced in making games so for a person like me without having any experience to take part in it would be nonsensical. Well, now that I have already taken part in three different ones, it should be pretty much obvious now that how wrong I was. In the last Global Game Jam 2018, the theme was “transmission”. Pretty interesting one, isn’t it? Whenever you think of the word “transmission”, the first thing that comes to my mind is broadcasting a signal, transferral of information or wavelength etc. After the race of the developers started, I was thinking of making something totally different. Something that should not go with the conventional meaning of the word rather having it as a metaphor or hidden philosophically. When I expressed my thought to the other, I noticed that we all had pretty much the same thought. After hours of only brainstorming, we came up with lots of different and interesting ideas for our game but most of them needed much complex dynamics and mechanics which was almost not possible for us within the given 48 hours as everyone was on the same page, new in this education. Nonetheless, we didn’t lose hope. Finally, we came up with one finalized idea where everyone agreed upon the same thing and had enough faith in themselves that it was possible to do within the time limit. Thus, after 48 hours of hard work, dealing with enough stress but at the same time enjoying themselves, the 6 survivors of group “Grumpy Saplings” gave birth to “Radients” where a player can experience the feel of transmitting life into a barren world from nothingness. It was not actually a game rather an audio-visual experience with interactions, more like an interactable story of three different saplings growing into fully grown trees. The player could only control the sunlight direction with left and right arrow button and could choose to grow any tree they would prefer. Even though there was more to the story of “Radients”, not having enough time, we had to finish it the way we could. However, I personally was really happy after it was done because it was a really big chance for me to learn more about the works of a graphic designer, some in-depth knowledge about photoshop and also about working in a team which is helping me a lot right now where we are making a game from a concept design, which is also a vital part for passing the game design course of this semester.  |
