After encouragement from friends I set about participating in my first game jam – it was hard. I’ve been teaching myself Unreal Engine from scratch over the last few months, and while I’m no programmer, it’s worked for me well so far. The event forced me to quickly learn elements of UE that I wasn’t familiar with, and to also ‘finish’ a game. While what I’ve created is far from something special, the comments and encouragement from everyone has been great.

The good

• Puns!
• A cow that shoots milk from its udders.
• Moo! SFX provided by my brother moo-ing into his iPhone.
• Destructible Platforms. It was my first time playing with fractals and I think it looks okay.

The bad

• Not enough puns!
• Needs more enemies – had lots more planned, each with different types of behaviour.
• Scoring – The score and churn mechanic needs more refinement and explaining to the player. The ultimate goal is for them to speed-run the game choosing when to kill and when to avoid enemies for the best possible run.
• Lots of placeholder sprites/animations – I started out to do orthographic, but had a change of heart and went with perspective, hence the strange blend of sprites and 3D. I think at some point I was envisioning a Paper Mario-esque look. Either way, it kinda got lost somewhere between the two
• UE4+HTML5=Pain. I’ve seen that people with the web players get a lot more people trying their game – no shit – but I just couldn’t get it to work for me. Weird input lag and collision that stopped working.

Next Time

There definitely will be a next time, and I plan to work with others! Reduce the workload and have a soundboard to bounce ideas off. It was tough to come up with a clear idea at 2AM (UK) but regular contact with my housemate (my brother) meant I could talk out some ideas or problems.

If you want to check it out, you can see my submission here: Butter Luck Next Time.

Now to go back to my other game projects with a renewed vigor. Thanks game devs!