We already have experience of Jam because we have participated in several previous editions. Before me, Sabrina Lacerda, and Djosef Wytemalhos played games together with other friends, but this time we decided to do it in pairs. First when the theme came out, we started to research and think about what we could do. Several ideas emerged, and the first one was to make a runner in which the character grew. The ideas came, but we wanted our game to be different. So we decided to do a re-reading of Tetris, a classic game that marked our childhoods. We researched how Tetris works and how we could do something more interactive with a comic character. For the plot and visual of the game, we thought that a pyramid could match well with the mechanics of mounted blocks, where an Egyptian worker could push them. With this we have an interesting visual narrative, with a comic cartoon aesthetic and mechanics inspired by tetris.

Game in initial prototype.

Mechanics: We use 2D platform mechanics where the player controls an Egyptian worker to push blocks and form ranks, which add up to completing, similar to the Tetris game. The difference is that there are blocks that can destroy other blocks, and also a controllable character.

Aesthetics: The game is stylized cartoon, where the character and interactive objects have lines at the edges, and the background has a flat art aesthetic with textures. The character animations were made frame by frame, and have comic features such as "stars" over the character's head when being hit by a block. The audios were picked up and mixed through the site "Free Sounds", with songs referring to Egypt and some audios with comic connotations.

History: The story of Mad Desert was not as thorough, but it is an Egyptian worker building a pyramid wall. We wanted the game not to weigh in on a story, so focus is more on the gameplay and fun of the player. The idea of making a comic character served to make people more attractive and funny.

Technology: We use Photoshop for most of the game's visuals and animations, with some Construct 2 effects elements. The game was developed in Construct 2, as well as the Audacity tool for mixing sound effects.

Learning: With Mad Desert, the programmer (Djosef Wytemalhos) learned to solve some problems of game mechanics like Tetris, because at first he had a little difficulty, but he managed to think of different ways to program until he was able to arrive at a result satisfactory. And I (Sabrina Lacerda) was able to train a skill that I had not tested before. Usually I made art, and other friends animated it on Spriter. But this time, I had to turn myself to make art and animations, and challenged myself to make frame-by-frame animations. It was an arduous experience, but it made me learn a lot about Sprite sheet, and made me become more interested in the animation area.

Game ready.

The good: The game has an aesthetic with Egyptian references, a well-defined color palette, and frame-by-frame animations that make possible more fluid and comic animations for the character. The visual effects of dust, along with the sound effects bring an immersive and fun feeling to the player.

The bad: The limitation of the theme generated very similar games, with little innovation. But despite that, the game was well done with everything we wanted, with only a few crash bugs, where the character could climb two blocks up without falling, but eventually became a feature on the part of the programmer to help the character's mobility.

Initial Feedback: We had few feedbacks, but they were all great, and most people found the game fun, with beautiful graphics and nice audios that go with the game.

Link to play: https://datopgames.itch.io/mad-desert

Thank You everyone <3