GCPL Game Jam Retrospective

When we learned that one of the Atlanta metro’s local library systems was hosting a game jam, we knew we had to participate. Our last game jam was in 2021 when we developed Opossum Opanic over the course of a long weekend. We loved that experience, and decided now was the time to try again.

We developed a game called Strange Planet, a top down surivivors-like action game. This was our first local game jam experience, and we learned a ton to take into future game development.

Smart scoping up front can make or break the project

When looking at retrospectives and learnings from other game jams and development teams, the main takeaway you hear over and over again is that scoping your game well is the biggest determining factor of success. If your idea has too many mechanics or details, you risk not being able to finish the project in time. It’s also risky not to leave time for yourself for bug fixes, feedback and a little game polish at the end of the jam.

For this game jam, we wanted to create a game with a simple gameplay loop we could layer power-ups onto to go along with the jam theme, “Strange Side Effects.” We knew we wanted to spend the majority of our time implementing side effects, which meant keeping the game simple. 

In 2020, we came across a mobile game by a developer named LEME called Magic Survival. In Magic Survival, you traverse a 2D top down world while waves of enemies race toward you from all directions. You move around the screen auto-firing at enemies and trying to survive for as long as possible. Along the way, you can collect XP gems to level up magical enhancements. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Magic Survival also inspired Luca Galante to create Vampire Survivors in 2022.

We thought a similar base game mechanic was both small enough in scope for us to complete within the time constraints of the game jam as well as a good canvas on which to play around with the theme. Because we kept our core game mechanic small in scope, we were able to layer on the theme, playtest and polish our game in the time allotted for the jam. If we had gone with a bigger game concept, we would have sacrificed a lot on quality, polish and player feedback.

Bake the theme into everything

As mentioned before, the game jam’s theme this year was “Strange Side Effects.” It’s a broad theme, but a fun one with lots of room to play with interpretation. In The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Jesse Schell explains how basing your game around a unifying theme means that all elements of the game will reinforce one another. When your game is based around a single theme, you should always be looking for clever and unexpected ways to reinforce that theme for the player to create a strong, cohesive feeling. With this in mind, we looked for every opportunity to bake “Strange Side Effects” into the game.

Some of our initial brainstorming on side effects

We immediately got a science fiction vibe from the theme. From there, we discussed adding power-ups to the game to create side effects. This didn’t feel like it was quite on-theme enough; picking up a power-up is neither strange nor unexpected. To create more of a strange feeling, we decided to have both a negative and positive consequence for each power-up’s effect. To take this theme even further, we started discussing how we could combine power-ups together for a stacking effect with bigger side effects that would be even more surprising for the player. 

None of the side effects were documented in game in order to give the players and judges the surprise of experiencing them without knowing what to expect. We thought about how these might play out in the venue of the game jam - people would be playing our game for a short amount of time so we wanted them to see all of the content in a short play session. To ensure this, we decided against an XP and leveling system to unlock content and added a duration time limit to power-ups.

Player character, enemy, power-up and projectile designs from Strange Planet

Finally, to wrap up the theme, we gave the game a science fiction pulp magazine look and feel. The color palette, title and monster designs were all based on pulp magazine covers from the 1950s and 1960s. These covers featured bright, primary color palettes, exotic alien landscapes, dramatic spaceships and strange robot and alien creatures. To capture this theme with the power-up design, we created items that looked like a hybrid of mechanical equipment and gems.

Try something new

Since forming our game company in 2021, we have been focused on developing our point and click adventure game, Thin Ice. We wanted to try an action game with a short game play loop. Balancing a point and click adventure game is much different than balancing an action game. This was something new for us to try, and we spent a lot of time tweaking enemy speed, player speed, and power-up spawning.

This was out of our range of experience and comfort zone in a lot of ways, but by stretching ourselves beyond our normal game development routine, we learned a lot. One of our biggest takeaways was just how much fun it is to develop an action game with a smaller gameplay loop, especially because this meant we could get our game in front of players much faster. This brings me to the next point…

Playtest early and often to improve the game

Player feedback is absolutely key in making a fun, balanced game. In fact, the sooner you can playtest the better. So far we had scoped our game well and incorporated the theme as much as possible. All that was left was to get it in front of players. To do this, we recruited friends and local indie game devs to try out the game and give us feedback.

The most useful feedback we got was that players felt the negative side effects on some of the power-ups outweighed the positive side effects. This meant players were avoiding picking up power-ups and trying to survive without them. Since feeling the side effects of the power-ups was a core part of both the gameplay and the theme, we thought through how to give meaning to picking up the power-ups. To accomplish this, we added an oxygen meter that slowly depletes as the player runs around on screen. If the oxygen meter reaches zero, the player character dies. In order to replenish the oxygen meter and prolong the playtime, the player must pick up power-ups along the way. This was a perfect solution to encourage rapid play, collecting power-ups and experiencing all of the content and side effects with short play sessions.

Without receiving this player feedback early on, our game may have completely missed the mark on reinforcing the theme of the game.

Before and after playtesting - we added the oxygen meter to give players a reason to pick up power-ups

Results

All in all, the GCPL game jam was a success! Not only did we learn a ton, we made a game we were really proud of. We came away with a prize for best interpretation of the theme and best implementation, and we got to showcase our game in person to gather even more feedback from players.

What’s next for us? We see more action games in our future as we continue to work on Thin Ice. More action games means more time spent with our games in front of players, the more rewarding part of game development.

Until next time,

Laserblast Studios