In my spare time I enjoy getting involved in personal game dev experiments and participating in game jams. In the case of the Global Game Jam, these are events where small teams of various disciplines get together to develop weird and experimental games based on a specific theme in the space of 48 hours. I took the picture above in Cologne in 2015, while working on EneMe, my first Game Jam.
Each Jam comes with a set of diversifiers that can be considered as optional objectives or achievements.
Game Jams
2018: Nerd Alert (UE4)
A 4-player local multiplayer action game
Created for the Spring 2018 UE4Jam, which had the theme of: Transformation.
Supporting between 2 and 4 players in local multiplayer sessions, each player starts off as a Nerd visiting a classic diner. Things start getting serious when random protein shakes start appearing that transform any Nerd that drinks it into a Jock and setting off a frenetic dominance struggle...
I was mainly involved with designing, implementing and tweaking the gameplay and sound, sourcing the external assets and creating the UI. You can see more details about the game and download it here: https://carlestyle.itch.io/nerd-alert
2017: SuperPosition (Unity)
An eyeball controlled quantum puzzle game
The theme for the 2017 Global Game Jam was: Waves.
We decided to build a game in Unity based on the quantum physical phenomenon of Superposition, or particle-wave duality, using the tobii eye tracker as the sole input device.
At the atomic level, elements seem to behave differently depending on whether they are observed or not. When observed, they behave like particles, but if not, they behave like waves. Is matter always solid? Does it cease to ‘exist’ when we don’t look at it? SuperPosition explores this phenomenon through gameplay mechanics.
I came up with the game's concept, and was involved with the development of the mechanics, level design and audio selection/implementation.
Full playthrough of SuperPosition, using only the player's eyes as an input device. (Turn your volume up!)
Diversifiers hit:
-Beyond the doors of perception (Tobii Sponsored): Use Tobii's eye tracking device to extend your player's view in-game and break the 4th wall! Jammers can incorporate Extended View, Awareness or both effects into their game.
-The colour and the shape: A colour-based game that can also be played by people who have any kind of difficulty seeing colour.
2016 Fangtastic (UE4, Vive)
An arcade VR game, using a flaming crucifix against vampires
The theme for the 2016 Global Game Jam was: Ritual.
Equipped with a couple of Vive devkits, we decided on making a small VR game that followed the aftermath of some ritual that somehow went wrong.
We join the protagonist on the back of a pickup truck driving at full throttle trying to get out of this mess. Equipped only with a torch and a crucifix that has the ability to pulse out flaming projectiles, the player has to defend themselves from a horde of incoming vampires...
Playthrough footage coming soon...
Testing the flaming crucifix
Diversifiers:
-No retreat, no surrender: The protagonist is unable to go anywhere but forward, in every situation.
-Take control: Instead of the usual keyboard and console controllers, your game must use a custom controller
-One hand tied behind my back: Create a game that can be played with only one hand. On mobile just one hand holding and playing at the same time i.e. just play with your thumb. Desktop, mouse only or keyboard only.
2015 EneMe (Unity)
A 1st Person escape-'em-up
Built in Unity, EneMe is an abstract and experimental 1st person puzzle game.
The player enters a maze-like arena with 8 doors on the perimeter, and a big red button in the centre with a jumbotron above it. When approached, the button responds and unlocks one of the doors at random. This door leads back into a seemingly similar arena, only this time an enemy is found navigating the arena too. If the player comes into contact with it, it's game over.
Each successive arena brings more and more enemies:
Playthrough of EneMe
The trick here, as you may have figured out from the video above, is that the tunnel linking two arenas actually teleports to a new random location outside one of the other doors. The numbers inside the tunnel add to the illusion, but the player is actually re-entering the same arena from a different angle.
The enemies are in fact reincarnations of the player-character, and follow paths from previous iterations - hence the title: EneMe.
Diversifiers:
I am who I want to be: The game has characters, but nothing in their design suggests a gender.