Review of Global Game Jam 2018 at Stevenson University

• How were you feeling about the event before attending?

            Before I attended the event, I felt a considerable amount of anticipation because I wasn’t certain what to think of a 3-day global game event where more than just my classmates would be involved. Also, I figured it would be a hectic event because of the number of people involved in the event so I thought we all might be fighting for space. Finally, I was very concerned about my ability to create a whole video game from beginning to end since I’m very new to developing video games.

• What most surprised you about the event?

            The ideas and games that people came up with surprised me the most about this event. It was really cool to see everyone’s creativity and skill result in the amalgamation of one playable game. As an aside, I was very surprised everyone that participated was able to complete a playable game because I know how hard it is and how much time needs to be devoted to making a video game.

• What was your job/contribution to your team? Did you enjoy it? Why/why not?

            My job was to program the game and design how the game plays. It was fun to discover how the Construct 3 game engine works, how I could make the game multiplayer, how I could incorporate a gif into the game to use as the background for the game, etc. I would also like to say that while it was fun to discover new things, it was very challenging figuring out how to incorporate everything into the game.

• What was your game, and if given the opportunity, would you develop it further?

            Our game is called “Th3r3 C4n 0nly B1!” If the given the opportunity, I would definitely develop this game further. In the future, I would like to add music to this game.

• What was your favorite game presented/played at the event?

            My favorite game presented at the event was “Lost Radios” because of its use of the Unity game engine and being able to see a 3D character, created from scratch, walk, run, crouch, and jump. It really captured my attention since 3D and high resolution graphics are the basis of most of today’s video games.

• Would you participate in Global Game Jam again? Why/why not?

            I would definitely participate in Global Game Jam again because it was a great experience, especially for an individual such as myself who is pursuing a career in video game development. I learned an incredible amount of things from this event such as the numerous amount of video game engines that are available. I had previous knowledge about quite a few game engines, but when I saw the list of game engines on the Global Game Jam site, I was astounded and immediately wanted to try them all out. Also, this event gave me some great insight into what it would be like if I worked at a gaming company since gaming companies are centered around team-oriented tasks. Although my team was small in size, we were able to bring all of our particular skillsets together, and you could see each of them on display in the final product.

Here's a picture of our game and some gameplay: