This year I'm very glad that I'm able to join Global Game Jam again. Here's the game that our team have developed. o lukin e ko jaki (Watching Poop)!
In this game, there're poops sliding and jumping around on the street. The player has to first memorize the path taken and the color of the poops. Then, the player would be asked a question about the poops. If the player answers correctly, a new wave of poops would come out. Otherwise the player'd lose the game.
The game is in Toki Pona using Sitelen Pona writing system.
Here's the gameplay video. What a shitty game it is, literally! :D
This game was developed in collaboration with jan N30HRTGDV and jan Niko. I'd like to thank them for forming a team with me. This game wouldn't have happened without their help. :)
Due to COVID19, GGJ's going remote this year. I've thought about taking this opportunity of remote GGJ to join another jam site. However, on second thought, I decided not to do that.
For the ease of administration, our team had decided to just join the Hong Kong Cyberport's site. That's because they're flexible and I'm rather experienced with joining this site.
All of our team members are Toki Pona speakers. Before the jam, I've managed to reach out four Toki Pona speakers interested in joining the jam. In the end only three of us ended up working on the game tho.
Originally we planned to exclusively speak Toki Pona within the team during the event. Unfortunately, one of the team members can't speak the language fluently. Therefore, we ended up switching to English by the end of the event.
However, as for the game itself, its description, and even the code of the game, they're in Toki Pona.
I'm rather impressed that I was actually able to write code entirely using this minimalist language (except for API calls and keywords of the programming language).
Since all of our members have at least a little bit experience on using Godot Engine, we've decided to use this engine. The person who's the most familiar with this engine was jan Niko. Due to some circumstances tho, I ended up being the main programmer of the team. Fortunately I've briefly revisited Godot Engine before the start of the event. And I'm surprised that my Godot skill was actually good enough for making a game for the jam. In fact, despite my limited experience, I found that I'm more efficient with Godot than with other game engines like libgdx that I've spent months on using.
With Godot engine, I've managed to pull out the following game feature in a short time, which would take quite a bit of time to do without it:
It's my first time doing any of the things above for a game. I'd seriously consider using Godot Engine for future game jams. It's easy to use, I could get the work done real fast. It's simply awesome for cranking out game features within a limited amount of time.
jan Niko had helped a bit with programming. Originally they planned to make music for the game. However, due to lack of inspiration, it didn't happen. But that's ok. It isn't like that this game requires any music.
jan N30HRTGDV had helped with designing 3D models. Originally we planned to make the entire landscape in 3D. However, after he finished the design, we agreed that the landscape wasn't good enough, and we didn't have time to fix that. Therefore, we ended up extracting a couple of models from the landscape and put them onto the original photo. Here's the photo before having the 3D models and after having them. Funny how there's a statue there having a bowl ready to hold the poops. xD
As shown above, I've added shadow to the models so that it'd fit into the photo more naturally.
I've also asked for a thumb down photo from each of our team members. Each of us had taken a photo of thumb down. They're used in the scene when the player lose the game.
I'm very glad to have collaborated with all of the team members. The jam is more fun when I'm accompanied. And I'd like to congratulate jan N30HRTGDV for having completed his first game jam! :)
Here's the list of the stuffs that I've done for the first time in my life during this project:
Here's my fuck-up during the jam: In the trailer, I've used the wrong audio filters for noise removal. It made my voice indecipherable. And I didn't add any subtitles to it. And the alien-looking writing system shown on the game wasn't helping at all. :(
I think that the fellow jammers probably wouldn't know what this game's all about just by watching the trailer. I should have used some better filters so that my voice would be more clear. If not, I should have added subtitles.
I guess I should keep this in mind if I ever join Global Game Jam on Cyberport's site again.
I was pretty much occupied with the jam and making this blogpost. After this, I hope that I'd have more time to continue on my musical training.
Sadale