This past weekend I participated in my first micro game jam in Orlando called The Indie Galactic Space Jam. It was a three day event, starting Friday night(7-25) and went until Sunday night(7-27) that ran out of the Orlando Science Center, which is this fantastic 4 level kids science museum located near College Park. If you are in the Orlando area go take your kids for the day! You can check out pictures from the event on the Space Jam Facebook Page
The Indie Galactic Space Jam was an idea started by a fellow Fiean, Kunal Patel, who is also the founder of the local Orlando Indie community and meet-up Indienomicon. While I haven't been to an Indienomicon meeting I do have many friends who've gone and who use it to promote their personal projects in the O-town dev scene.
The Space Jam was an event to celebrate and promote interest in space exploration and science. Orlando is considered part of the Space Coast scene, having many Sim and space oriented tech companies.
I was so excited to be able to work again with some of my favorite Fieans. One of my producers from Pitch Jumper, Kevin, asked me about a month ago if I wanted to join and I was like "YES I WANT ALL THE SPACE GAMES." Kevin is great to work with, and we have similar interest in promoting education in the sciences (he was once a high school teacher before going into the games industry) so this was a great opportunity to have fun doing what we love while promoting cool topics.
The Indie Galactic Space Jam was an idea started by a fellow Fiean, Kunal Patel, who is also the founder of the local Orlando Indie community and meet-up Indienomicon. While I haven't been to an Indienomicon meeting I do have many friends who've gone and who use it to promote their personal projects in the O-town dev scene.
The Space Jam was an event to celebrate and promote interest in space exploration and science. Orlando is considered part of the Space Coast scene, having many Sim and space oriented tech companies.
I was so excited to be able to work again with some of my favorite Fieans. One of my producers from Pitch Jumper, Kevin, asked me about a month ago if I wanted to join and I was like "YES I WANT ALL THE SPACE GAMES." Kevin is great to work with, and we have similar interest in promoting education in the sciences (he was once a high school teacher before going into the games industry) so this was a great opportunity to have fun doing what we love while promoting cool topics.
PeriAreion
Also at the game jam was an indie game studio promoting their game about mars exploration and colonization called PeriAreion that is currently being voted on steam greenlight. If you want to help out a local Orlando indie dev check out their project here: PeriAreion
You can support them if you have a steam greenlight account by voting here:
Vote for PeriAreion on Steam Greenlight!
You can support them if you have a steam greenlight account by voting here:
Vote for PeriAreion on Steam Greenlight!
Jam Time
Friday:
We all showed up a little after 6:30 to mingled a bit as a team, ate dinner, and then people pitched game ideas. Everyone had about a minute to push their game before we broke off to vote on all the ideas. If you came as a team you were allowed to stay together and do your own thing(which is what we choose to do). Kevin had been researching private industrial space tech and had an idea to do a game on the costs and prohibitions of building a space elevator that could bring materials and people into space sans a traditional rocket. Not ever team decided to do a serious science game; you had a lot of freedom so long as it has a space theme to it. We worked a bit on the idea, planning out the next day and then went home at midnight. There were several Nasa guys who came over from Kennedy Space Center and they walked around talked to each group to see if they needed help with clarifying science concepts or topics.
We all showed up a little after 6:30 to mingled a bit as a team, ate dinner, and then people pitched game ideas. Everyone had about a minute to push their game before we broke off to vote on all the ideas. If you came as a team you were allowed to stay together and do your own thing(which is what we choose to do). Kevin had been researching private industrial space tech and had an idea to do a game on the costs and prohibitions of building a space elevator that could bring materials and people into space sans a traditional rocket. Not ever team decided to do a serious science game; you had a lot of freedom so long as it has a space theme to it. We worked a bit on the idea, planning out the next day and then went home at midnight. There were several Nasa guys who came over from Kennedy Space Center and they walked around talked to each group to see if they needed help with clarifying science concepts or topics.
Saturday:
Work ramped up again between 8am and 10am. Unity was one of the sponsors of the event and provided all teams with Unity Pro if they needed. We all knew Unity so we decided to use that as our engine. We braked for lunch, and mingled a bit more to see what everyone else was working on and how it was going. The amazing thing about the event was just how much food they provided. Bagels and coffee in the morning with chips, soda, water, candy, and mini sandwiches all day. So much food.!So much sugar! We worked until about midnight before going home. Paul got it so that when the sun was rotating around the Earth it created a mini day night cycle that you could see with the textures I made.
I mostly worked on skybox, planet textures, UI, and parts of the space elevator model.
Work ramped up again between 8am and 10am. Unity was one of the sponsors of the event and provided all teams with Unity Pro if they needed. We all knew Unity so we decided to use that as our engine. We braked for lunch, and mingled a bit more to see what everyone else was working on and how it was going. The amazing thing about the event was just how much food they provided. Bagels and coffee in the morning with chips, soda, water, candy, and mini sandwiches all day. So much food.!So much sugar! We worked until about midnight before going home. Paul got it so that when the sun was rotating around the Earth it created a mini day night cycle that you could see with the textures I made.
I mostly worked on skybox, planet textures, UI, and parts of the space elevator model.
Real Space Food!
Sunday:
We continued on polishing a bit more on the visuals; Anthony joined us that day to help with some of the effects. We stopped working on the game around 5pm, had it uploaded to the Jam site around 6ish and then had dinner. After dinner we went upstairs for final presentations before going home at 10pm.
We continued on polishing a bit more on the visuals; Anthony joined us that day to help with some of the effects. We stopped working on the game around 5pm, had it uploaded to the Jam site around 6ish and then had dinner. After dinner we went upstairs for final presentations before going home at 10pm.
While I've done RPP games before I've never made a game that functioned on any level in 24 hours. Of course there is always more you want to add but overall we were able to show some of the ideas we initially wanted such as the cost and hazards of a space elevator. I would consider our game more of an educational simulation than a true game with goals, and objectives, at least in it's current state. People asked us at the presentation if we wanted to continue working on it but we probably won't be. It was a fun two day project and I learned a ton about space elevators.
Our team was:
1. Kevin (Programmer/Producer)
2. Paul (Programmer/Producer)
3. Matt Burton (who doesn't have a website because boo but he is an awesome programmer and an awesome dude to work with...he just put out a game you can play here)
4. Nathan (Producer)
5. Sean (Programmer)
6. Anthony(Tech Artist)
You can try out all of the games here:
Space Jam Game Downloads
Or click below to check out our game Uplifting!
Our team was:
1. Kevin (Programmer/Producer)
2. Paul (Programmer/Producer)
3. Matt Burton (who doesn't have a website because boo but he is an awesome programmer and an awesome dude to work with...he just put out a game you can play here)
4. Nathan (Producer)
5. Sean (Programmer)
6. Anthony(Tech Artist)
You can try out all of the games here:
Space Jam Game Downloads
Or click below to check out our game Uplifting!
Some of the more polished elements I worked on. Initially we were going to have you zoom in on the elevator cargo body with stats but we had to cut that. So it got some nice texture love but you don't really get to see any of it in the finished game.
RSS Feed