Game Jam- Report

I had no idea what a game jam was when I first heard about it, but the more I learned about it, the more captivated I became. I liked the idea of different people from different courses getting together and making a game. I had a great time at the game jam as a whole because it was a great experience. We worked really well as a team to create a really good strong game, and I was very thrilled with the outcome.I was a big Sims fan when I was 10 or 12 years old. I used to spend my weekends playing it, I do play games on my PS4, such as Miles Morales or GTA V. I could spend hours and hours playing them. I could also go months without playing online games. I would not cast myself as a gamer. 

I really like the game jam style, even though students from TUD courses like Business and Language Game Design, as well as CDM students, participated in the game jam. My teammate Kevin and I were hoping for a game design student to join our team, but we did not get one.   On the day of the game jam, our groups were formed, and I was fortunate to have my friend Kevin from CDM on my team, as well as two language students learning Spanish. As previously stated, the game jam lasted all weekend, from Friday to Sunday night. We needed to have a finished game that was uploaded to itch.io. We were to collaborate as a team to develop a language-based game with the assistance of the team's language students.

Our team was called the Firebirds. I like the name we were given, and our team had a fantastic time choosing a team logo to represent us. The morning of the game jam, there were team chats and speeches given to everyone before we went off to create our game. The lecturers and planners gave everyone an overview of the game jam and what was expected of us. They also gave us some great advice right before we left. My team and I then went into our team chat rooms and started a call right away. My team consisted of myself, Kevin, Rachel, and Jack. Rachael and Jack were very outgoing and eager to come up with game ideas. We all made brief introductions and got to know one another. We also talked about when we'd be available during the game jam. Kevin and I were apprehensive about making a game on Unity because coding games is not our strong suit. Kevin and I informed our team of this information, and Rachel and Jack were unconcerned. We decided to create a card game based on language.

We used Miro to collaborate and began brainstorming ideas together to get the ball rolling. Kevin and I were excited to put our graphic design skills to use when we decided to play a card game. Kevin and I were working on a group project together, creating a graphic piece, so designing the cards came naturally to us. Jack and Rachel were able to provide us with Spanish words for each card as well as translation.

We wanted to make a Spanish language card game for children. These would be basic Spanish words for kids to learn. They would be grouped and have an associated colour and image to help children learn both Spanish and English from the card. Kevin and I discussed what colour schemes  and the aesthetic approach we would take to the design element of the cards. we would use on the cards on the Miro.  We spent considerable time naming as many nouns as we could. We try to share which categories we would include in the game as a group. 

On the Miro Alex and I looked at what colours we would incorporate on the cards. As a team we started to talk about what categories we would include in the game. 

The categories were broken into;

1. Fruit & Veg - Red

2. Sports- Purple

3. Animals - Green

4. Weather - Blue

5. Clothes & Accessories - Yellow

6. Household Items - Orange

After finalising the categories, Kevin and I launched Illustrator to create our cards. We wanted everything to look the same we make. We were aware of the noun project a royalty free icon  website from group project, so we decided to create the cards for the game using the icons from the noun project. Kevin and I were given three categories each to work on. I created the Animals, Weather and Fruit and veg cards. Kevin and I were in contact a lot to ensure that all the same elements such as colour line and stroke were the same. Here are the cards I created. 

One of the difficulties we encountered was deciding how to distribute our game. Kevin had a brilliant idea to make it a downloadable game, allowing people to print the cards and play whenever they wanted. We also came up with a plan for what I would do once cards were printed. This demonstrated how to cut and glue the images together to make the card, as well as how to fold the card easily.