Galway Game Jam November 2014 – Hidden Worlds

Hi folks. Today I attended the Galway Game Jam. [Link to their site!]. I had a great time! Thank you Galway Game Jam organisers, participants and Pulse College for hosting this (intense) event.

Unfortunately the game that my team (Team WombatHammer) were working on never made it to a playable state. However we learned a great deal in the process and had a fun time making things, I for one made my first walk-cycle animation, which is win/win in my books! The theme, announced the morning of the event, was “Hidden Worlds”. We generated about 4 or 5 ideas before we started working and ended up selecting the idea we thought most plausible with given the time limit.

The basic game design was a simple 2D puzzle platformer in which certain world objects were hidden/invisible that you could detect and call into existence in order to progress. We aimed to make the first level of this game for the event. It had a lovely design that promised to intuitively teach the player how to play without the need for a tutorial (this is shown in Ego Raptors’ Sequelitis video series – be warned, it’s full of Ego Raptors’ personality). Nothing original in terms of design/gameplay, (I’d like to see some of the other ideas we had made!) however the lead designer had some fun narrative spun around it. Here are some of the art assets I created for the event.

Meadhbh the Intrepid Geologist:

Meadhbh The Intrepid Geologist Running Animation, a pixel art animation by Darren Kearney
Eiyam? the Meta Inquisitor:
Alaine? the Meta Inquisitor, by Darren Kearney

Background art:

Background art made during Galway Game Jam by Darren Kearney
Some tile art:
Tile-Grass Top Right, by Darren Kearney Tile-Dirt, by Darren Kearney Tile-Grass Wall Left, by Darren Kearney Tile-Grass Wall Right, by Darren Kearney Tile-Grass, by Darren Kearney Tile-Grass Top Left, by Darren Kearney

That’s my first walk/run cycle animation! It’s a bit choppy but I’m actually quite pleased, considering. *Get’s a big head*. Thanks to everyone for coming out and making a great event! It was quite nice to play all the team’s games afterwards. It was a great opportunity to talk with game makers about their process and the difficulties they individually faced when making in such a limited time.

There were prizes (congrats to everyone who won!). I’d like to note that the 2nd place team were first-time game jam participants, and developed their game using Python with the Pygame library. Overall I am quite impressed by the level of finish that has been achieved, in only 12 hours and in some cases less!

I can’t wait to put these new lessons into practice, and I look forward to attending more game jam’s in the future.

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