Global Game Jam 2013: Deadbeats

Posted 2013-01-31 15:57:34 by Nat

This year James, Ben, Owen and Nat worked together at the 2013 Global Game Jam, run by Explay and held at the head offices of Creative England in Bristol.

For those unfamiliar with the game jam format; it consists of a theme, a team and 48 hours to make a game. Global Game Jam is a bit special in that it happens simultaneously at 300+ sites around the world, with over 3000 games produced by more than 10,000 insane, sleepless developers.

This theme this year was the sound of a heartbeat, which we were keen not to interpret too literally, and after much deliberation the idea of Day of the Dead characters came up and no-one can really remember why.

Team:
James Parker: code, Unity
Ben Trewhella: code, Unity
Owen Davies: code, Unity
Nat Al-Tahhan: Art

We also had experienced jammer Gaz Williams providing sound (‘Hello, we need a Mexican heartbeat please’). I haven’t done artwork assets for 3D in a while, resulting in James, with increasing weariness, explaining that things that are smaller are further away.

48 hours and a considerable number of Jaffa Cakes later, we had Deadbeats, a competitive multiplayer platformer where the goal is to be the last skull standing by jumping on each other’s heads. You can change planes by standing on moving platforms which switch in time with the heart beat, resulting in really nice perspective changes and allowing for tactical gameplay (if you want. I prefer the ‘run around frantically pressing all the buttons’ style myself).

Here are some screenshots below, you can view the GGJ entry and download PC version here or play the web version here.