This year was the first time that there was a Global Game Jam in Augsburg. Wildfuchs Interactive, a very young game studio located near the city centre, was hosting. There were just 5 members of the studio and me attending, so it was very different from bigger events. We could just make one game and decided on a Jump and Run where you had to navigate a very isolated environment with lots of monsters to get home (The theme was: What home feels to you).

The game had a very ambitious scope. Towards the end, we had to rush a lot of things resulting in quite a buggy game (not even talking about the physics-based centipede I spend so much time on and had to replace with a much simpler version). Nevertheless, the team did great work from the graphics to the sound design to the level design and the programming. There just wasn’t enough time for polish and bug fixing. The Wildfuchs people are really nice and talented, I wish them all the success in the world and hope to jam with them again.

You can download our game here.

Some afterthoughts:

1.) When we did the brainstorming to come up with the game idea I was very uninspired. But Sunday morning I got an idea I would like to explore further: What if you would live in a home that’s constantly rotating? Where you sometimes would walk on the walls and the ceiling? How would you arrange things to be easy to use in multiple directions? If someone knows of a game with this trope please write me in the comments.

2.) When I was thinking about games that were having the concept of home as a central theme, I was remembering the game Cargo Commander. It’s such a great feeling when you went hunting for loot in abandoned cargo containers and can finally go back to your base where this heartwarming song is playing and you are finally safe. Also the whole story with being separated from your wife and your child and working hard to finally get home. It’s a good game, go play it!

3.) I forgot to make a blog post about it, but I also participated in Global Game Jam 2018 and we made a game inspired by my current job: It’s called Solar Mission and you can download it here.