Parker’s Angels Vs. Game Hack

Posted 2013-11-22 15:57:34 by Joe

Last weekend the bulk of the Opposable Games team took a trip down to the beautiful and exotic town of Slough to take part in the second annual GameHack. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, GameHack is where a lot of people interested in games are locked in a large room, are split into teams and then have 24 hours to produce a working, preferably awesome, video game.

To be more specific we were working in one of the beautiful Heatherden Hall mansion at Pinewood studios. I know it doesn’t sound wise to have 150 nerds situated a stone’s throw away form where the new Star Wars will be filmed, but as you can imagine you don’t get much spare time for exploration, and all the security guards were as big as the Rancor.

The theme this year was “Childhood”, which sounds like a given when making games but we found it helpful. They say write about what you know and video games are no exception, so naturally myself, James and Lukas, three men with no children or wombs, made a game about the miracle of childbirth. Inspired by Lukas’ first ever battle with his twin brother to be the first into the world and be crowned the eldest, we came up with a foetus-based fighting game…

This name suggests two things, first of all James’ ability to make beautiful puns is enhanced dramatically with the addition of alcohol and Red Bull. But it also shows that GameHack is the perfect place to make that game that no one would ever ask, or allow you make. It’s like an amazing purge of creativity that lets you get all those ideas you have down the pub into existence. It gives you an incredible burst of appreciation for the business if you are in it, and a renewed admiration for the medium if not.

All in all there were around 30 teams there and the diversity of games was astounding. Due to the presence of the theme, as you may expect, there were some reoccurring elements like toys and a disdain for vegetables but no two games felt the same. Two of the games with the biggest disparity in both tone and gameplay were both based around simply being on a swing. It was mind blowing.

The process of making a game that fast is a weird one. You have to tune into each other almost immediately. From an artist’s point of view you can’t be precious with your ideas as the time allocation for concept art was about 5 minutes. This is uncomfortable at first but ultimately it left me feeling liberated, which turned out to be a running theme for me throughout the whole process. When you only have such a limited time for development, time to doubt yourself is pretty much non-existent.

Another huge benefit to this abnormal situation is the respect you gain for the people you work with. We had a working prototype of our game in less than an hour and in my opinion James’ temporary artwork was far superior to mine. It’s a great reminder of what you and the people around you are capable of.

Placenta the Dragon is without doubt the most fun and original game I’ve ever been a part of in my admittedly short career and it wouldn’t exist without GameHack. I’m proud of myself and my team for giving birth to quite such bizarre a creation.

To play our inspiring story of betrayal, love, revenge and umbilical cords, click here

- Joe (artist)