Jam time frame – 3 days
My team size – 2 people
This was my first jam, which meant I was filled with excitement and in retrospect, that may have been detrimental, and partially blinded me to scoping issues.
Firstly, the art worked on by another was mid/high poly, which is not ideal for a small-time frame and extremely limited the number of assets in the game. The assets ended up being: a stall, barrel, bench, lamppost, bin, table, and chairs. Rushed to come up with ideas, we decided upon a game in a marketplace where you are a vampire attempting to avoid the crowd so he won’t give in to his vampiric urges.
Whilst I do enjoy the concept, of a game about avoiding combat entirely and not giving into something which players expect, which creates a more human approach to a vampiric game, possibly enabling players to empathize more with the character, a stealth level was overscoped and due to me also having to implement the blueprint of the game, I was rushed of time to maintain a healthy lifestyle and design, block out and mesh out multiple quality levels. Ultimately, it was only one level, with admittedly lackluster gameplay.
One main problem was the game did not have replayability with a short satisfying loop. If made again and still within the marketplace theme, the lessen the level design overscope problem, I would make the game something along the lines of:
-A procedural runner game where you play as a relentlessly bloodthirsty vampire avoiding the crowd at night, where the setting is insinuated to be a bustling nightlife with plenty of partying. Since the additional limitation was blood is lethal, the consumed blood could be highly alcoholic, therefore, if running into the people, it becomes harder to run, before the player eventually collapses due to too much alcohol consumed. Though this does come with additional problems, as endless runners are common and not particularly unique.
If I did this idea, I could also perhaps add vampire hunters to the equation and maybe have a special ability with a long recharge (such as flying above the spawned objects as a bat). Though these may be stretch goals.
- Shop simulator where you are a seller in a black-market selling blood to other vampires. After you find out some of the sold batch is poisoned, you must save customers from consuming the blood etc.
I could go on with other ideas, but what I believe, is that it would have been more essential to design a refined and simple addictive gameplay loop within a smaller playable area, so there could be more time for blueprinting and playtesting etc.
Problems aside, I did better my project management skills and practice blocking out but was also my last project made in UE4 before my transition to UE5.
We managed tasks on a very helpful site called Trello and split the tasks into the following categories/boards:
Summary of problems:
-Overscoped project that relied too heavily on level design within a short time frame
-Was also implementing the gameplay and spending too long on attempting to design a stealth level, took away from gameplay development time
-High poly assets limited the environment
-Lack of micro-sprints within the day
-Usage of the limitation may have been considered too loose and unclear.
-Lighting issues took a while to fix which meant there wasn’t time to retarget AI and give them a new mesh.
-No incentive for replaying the game as the gameplay core loop was not well established
What I would do differently next time:
-implement more independent soft deadlines, so I would not focus too much on one task which isn’t as important
-In Trello, label tasks in order of priority and do them in that order
-Design a game without multiple complex levels to design and focus on a smaller playable area, with a more simple and addictive gameplay loop
-Prioritise tasks better
But regardless of the underwhelming outcome, it was a vital learning experience I’m glad to have been part of. In addition, it has not discouraged me from development but instead, only encouraged me to create more quality products I can be proud of. Furthermore, I did find the experience addicting and enthralling. Though the best thing to come out of this project is a new friendship
The link for the game is here below:
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