With the exception of one game I’m still gathering materials for, all the games created over the weekend can now be downloaded and played here. Be sure to check them out!
Caitlin Moriarity is a technology, pop culture and web content writer in St. Louis, MO. This is her second game jam, and she blogs about the experience of creating the game Scales of Justice. You can find her at her website. Crossposted to her blog, Geek Saint Louis.
The Saint Louis Game Jam this weekend kicked off with a bang. After arriving at the Simutronics offices, all the participants (about 75 of us, all told), crowded into the conference room for the ritual drawing of the theme. The noun picked was “Justice”, and the adjective was “Light” — so our theme this weekend was “Light Justice.” Sounds like an Internet meme to me. 
We then divided ourselves up by specialties — programming, art, design, and miscellaneous (where I, as a writer, ended up). Then we put together our teams for the weekend.
The team I was on, led by Simutronics staffers Elonka Dunin and Jen Patton, tossed around ideas and came up with the bare bones idea of a platformer, where a cat finds scales scattered by a rainbow trout god, which we presented to the Game Jam (under the name Team Rainbow Killer). And then we buckled down and got to work.
We further refined our game idea. We went with a Japanese motif, and you control a white cat that is catching the rainbow scales that are falling off of the rainbow trout god, and restoring the scales. Periodically, a black cat will run across the screen and knock more scales off of the rainbow trout god, for the white cat to try to catch.
The name we came up with for the game is Scales of Justice.
I will quote you the game intro text, which yours truly wrote:
“In the dawn of the world, legend tells of the rainbow trout god, Nijimasu-sama, who controlled all the colors of light, keeping each color safe and tucked away in his scales.
Until one day, the trickster cat Fusei, stole away Nijimasu-sama’s scales, scattering them across the land.
Fusei’s sibling, Kouhei, swore to recover Nijimasu-sama’s scales, and restore justice to the world.
You are Kouhei, seeking out and collecting the missing scales of each color, returning them to Nijimasu-sama.
But beware! Fusei is not through making mischief! He continues to attack Nijimasu-sama, scattering more scales for Kouhei to find.”
Our team coded the game in Flash. The game has nine levels, since cats have nine lives.
And now it’s Sunday morning, our game is up and running, our team is play testing it and tweaking the game play. In a few hours, we’ll show off our finished game to the rest of the game jammers.
This is my second game jam, and I enjoyed it more this time around, since I knew what to expect. I like the game, Mobius, that I worked on at the January Global Game Jam, but I like Scales of Justice more — it’s a more fun game, and has better gameplay than Mobius, in my opinion.
Overall, I like game jams and intend to do more of them in the future.
One thing I did find disappointing, though, was that there were not many other women participating in the Game Jam. It was the same at the January Game Jam as well. I would love to see more fellow women get involved in events like this, and in the game development industry in general. Part of it might have been the timing — this Game Jam was scheduled for the same weekend as Anime STL. I actually attended Anime STL on Saturday and talked to the staff of Happy Badger Studio, an indie game and app development studio here in town. The two staffers, both women, admitted that they would have attended the Game Jam if they hadn’t already been committed to presenting and manning a booth at Anime STL. (Happy Badger Studio did the official Anime STL app for both iPhone and Android.)
So yes, I’m hoping to persuade more women to participate in future Game Jams.
Otherwise, I’m looking forward to the next St. Louis Game Jam, in August!
Photo credit to Dave B.
Caitlin Moriarity is a technology, pop culture and web content writer in St. Louis, MO. This is her second game jam, and she blogs about the experience of creating the game Scales of Justice. You can find her at her website. Crossposted to her blog, Geek Saint Louis.
The Saint Louis Game Jam this weekend kicked off with a bang. After arriving at the Simutronics offices, all the participants (about 75 of us, all told), crowded into the conference room for the ritual drawing of the theme. The noun picked was “Justice”, and the adjective was “Light” — so our theme this weekend was “Light Justice.” Sounds like an Internet meme to me.
We then divided ourselves up by specialities — programming, art, design, and miscellaneous (where I, as a writer, ended up). Then we put together our teams for the weekend.
The team I was on, led by Simutronics staffers Elonka Dunin and Jen Patton, tossed around ideas and came up with the bare bones idea of a platformer, where a cat finds scales scattered by a rainbow trout god, which we presented to the Game Jam (under the name Team Rainbow Killer). And then we buckled down and got to work.
We further refined our game idea. We went with a Japanese motif, and you control a white cat that is catching the rainbow scales that are falling off of the rainbow trout god, and restoring the scales. Periodically, a black cat will run across the screen and knock more scales off of the rainbow trout god, for the white cat to try to catch.
The name we came up with for the game is Scales of Justice.
I will quote you the game intro text, which yours truly wrote:
“In the dawn of the world, legend tells of the rainbow trout god, Nijimasu- sama, who controlled all the colors of light, keeping each color safe and tucked away in his scales.
Until one day, the trickster cat Ranmyaku, stole away Nijimasu-sama’s scales, scattering them across the land.
Ranmyaku’s sibling, Kouhei, swore to recover Nijimasu-sama’s scales, and restore justice to the world.
You are Kouhei, seeking out and collecting the missing scales of each color, returning them to Nijimasu-sama.
But beware! Ranmyaku is not through making mischief! He continues to attack Nijimasu-sama, scattering more scales for Kouhei to find.”
Our team coded the game in Flash. The game has nine levels, since cats have nine lives.
And now it’s Sunday morning, our game is up and running, our team is play testing it and tweaking the game play. In a few hours, we’ll show off our finished game to the rest of the game jammers.
This is my second game jam, and I enjoyed it more this time around, since I knew what to expect. I like the game, Mobius, that I worked on at the January Global Game Jam, but I like Scales of Justice more — it’s a more fun game, and has better gameplay than Mobius, in my opinion.
Overall, I like game jams and intend to do more of them in the future.
One thing I did find disappointing, though, was that there were not many other women participating in the Game Jam. It was the same at the January Game Jam as well. I would love to see more fellow women get involved in events like this, and in the game development industry in general. Part of it might have been the timing — this Game Jam was scheduled for the same weekend as Anime STL. I actually attended Anime STL on Saturday and talked to the staff of Happy Badger Studio, an indie game and app development studio here in town. The two staffers, both women, admitted that they would have attended the Game Jam if they hadn’t already been committed to presenting and manning a booth at Anime STL. (Happy Badger Studio did the official Anime STL app for both iPhone and Android.)
So yes, I’m hoping to persuade more women to participate in future Game Jams.
Otherwise, I’m looking forward to the next St. Louis Game Jam, in August!
Photo credit to Dave B.
This post was written by the mom of one of our participants. Neither her nor her son have participated in a game jam before.
Colorful not only describes, the creative, positive surroundings here at
Game Jam 2012, but the incredible array of code programmers, music
specialist, designers and artists that are all bringing their amazing
talents to this years program. THE DAVID, as his name tag reads, called
the jam to order by instructing those who are here to come into the
non-traditional conference room with the threat that those who did not
enter would not be allowed candy. Giggles, laughter and underlying jokes
filled the room as MC Mike thanked Simutronics Corp, IDC
Projects, Glickert Chiropractic &Nutrition Center, Scott Petrovic for
being the sponsors of this years event.
The David kicked things off with a discussion of the overall philosophy
of Simutronics and the statement that he believes in breaking the catch
22 of needing experience to get a job and having a job to get
experience. Many of the internships given out by his company were handed
out at the last Game Jam and most of those internships have developed
into full-time positions. Building and growing talent from the ground up
is what he’s looking to do.
The walls of the room were literally drawing boards and were used to
help separate the talent by skill sets. Once they were categorized, the
participant groups were given themes and tasked to come up with game
ideas based off of those themes. Each group named themselves on the spot.
The first to present was Rainbow Killers who were planning on creating
their game on Flash Action Screen. The premise of their game was to have
the heroine recapture the broken colors of the rainbow to bring the
rainbow back together. Team Judge Judy, deviated from their original
idea of having a light empowered Judge Judy go out and conquer the world
to a Unity based game where the tiny heroine kills all terrible mean
things that derive from under her bed.
The Overweight Batman team came up with a GameMaker idea that involved
corrupt mall cops and a midget named short tack. Team Scheduling
Conflict was going to go forward with a UDK game where the superhero
takes on thousands of misdemeanors including mothers who let their
babies cry in public and parking violators.
Here’s a quick reference guide for all the things that you may find useful as you jam.
Tools
Dropbox- An easy way to share files with your teammates.
Redmine- A handy tool for managing your project, with utilities for version control
GameMaker- An easy way for non-programmers to make simple games.
Unity- A powerful tool that allows you to create a game for multiple platforms at once.
GameSalad- Another tool for quickly creating a game.
Food
Here is a quick map of restaurants near Simutronics offices, for when you get hungry.
It’s finally here! Doors for the jam open around 5 pm today, Friday April 20th, at Simutronics (218-C Millwell Drive, Maryland Heights, MO 63043), though it’s okay to come by a bit earlier if you’d like to help with setup! We are running the full 48 hours, though folks can come and go as they please (like me, I like my sleep!).
The theme will be announced around 5:30, then we’ll break into brainstorming groups, then hear ideas, and then start forming teams. Pizza will arrive around 8 pm, and we’ve also got some basic food planned for Saturday and Sunday breakfasts and lunches: Cereal, juice, milk, sodas, breads, coldcuts, peanut butter & jellies, some cookies and chips, fruits, veggies, etc. For more substantial meals, there are plenty of restaurants nearby, some of whom deliver, and we’ll have information on all that at the jam.
Last-minute checklist:
* Laptop!
* Wi-fi access!
* VGA cable!
* Designers: Creativity!
* Coders: Tools installed!
* Artists: Something to draw with!
* Everyone: Read the FAQ!
* Everyone: Get ready for a fantastic weekend!
See you soon,
Elonka
In my second vlog update, I discuss the jumping physics and the new camera system in the 2D platformer we’re working on.
Here are some links to the blogs I mentioned in the video:
Shaun Inman’s analysis of Super Mario World’s camera system
Shaun’s camera system in Mimeo
Replica Island blog’s camera discussion
