Jungle Jive

As part of the “Arcade Game” course at Uppsala University, me and my team, Dyonisos Games, made Jungle Jive. The purpose of the course was to create a game using a special input method of our choice. After a bit of iteration, we chose to create a dancing game in which two players would use dolls to control their avatar on screen, instead of dancing themselves.
Here’s the trailer for the game :

We had about ten weeks to create the game, […]

Comment : blog post assignment 6

Hey, good post!
I played your game during the last playtesting session, I think. Good job, it was an entertaining game!
Your post was clear throughout ; I enjoyed your insights on the MVP and its importance. It’s true that I can’t imagine how it would’ve been like to work with the waterfall method. At first, I was skeptical about scrum but I find it was the right choice of method.
From a programmer’s perspective, your game had some nice stuff going on, […]

Depth : Post Mortem

In the context of the course “Game Design 2 : Game development”, my group, Team T, made “Depth”, which you can find here. In the game design document we received, Depth was supposed to be a side-scrolling shoot’em’up in which a monster (which is faster than you) follows you. The mandatory pick-up was supposed to make the player go faster. The player’s flashlight would make the monster fall back and leave some time for the player to breathe. The […]

Comment : blog post assignment 5

Hey, good post!
I found everything clear, although some of your post was a bit swenglish-y, but that’s alright! I quite agree with your conclusion that playtesting is an extremely useful tool. A simple tweak in variables can bring about a huge improvement in game feel and therefore a better experience for the player. Knowing where to tweak, though, is hard to just guess, so playtesting is crucial. I liked your explanation of how you prepared for playtesting. We did much […]

5SD064 – Blog Post 5 : Playtesting

This blog will be about playtesting and its impact on development. My perspective is that of the sole programmer for team “Troll”, working on “Depth”.
Playtesting is two-dimensional : there is an internal dimension and an external one.
Internally, group Troll playtest the game whenever I implement a considerable amount of stuff in, or at the end of each sprint. In fact, playtesting plays into our definition of “done” for artifacts. Indeed, our definition of done is that it has been playtested […]

Comment : blog post assignment 1

Hey, good post!
I felt like everything was clearly described, of course I’m no project manager so stuff like the moscow method is alien to me, but I’m sure that to a PM it would be fine. You talked in great length about your motivations, which I understood perfectly. As a member of a team, I indeed want documents which are as clear as possible, and small stuff like visual representation seems trivial, but is crucial.
I only wish you would’ve provided […]

Comment : blog post assignment 4

Hey Adam, good post!
Movement was also a big part of Depth, my game. I had to revamp it a lot as well, since it always felt a bit “off”. I think there’s a balance to be had between gameplay and realism : the more realistic the better as long as it doesn’t destroy gameplay, since we want the player to be immersed while also having fun. Umibozu’s movement is a big challenge, since, as you’ve said it’s a huge part […]

5SD064 – Blog Post 4 : Dying

Death is a big part of “Depth”. When you die, and you can only die from getting eaten by the monster chasing you, you have the choice between returning to the main menu or restarting the game at the last checkpoint.
Restarting the game means that every enemy and power-up has to be removed from the scene, every enemy and power-up spawner has to be reinitialized, the player has to be teleported back to the last checkpoint (which, in “Depth”, […]

Comment : Blog post assignment 3

Hey Guy, enjoyed reading your post. I have quite a similar perspective being the lead programmer for my group as well, so this was quite a relatable read. I had the same overall hesitance to use scrum at first, since it made my job more annoying and yeah, it was a bit like a know-it-all mom telling me I should eat my vegetables, but after a bit it got better. For me it’s still not perfect but y’know, better than […]

Comment : Blog post assignment 2

“Hey, good read yet again!
I especially enjoyed the part about finding things that went wrong, as I could relate! Our group ended up choosing things which were unrelated to the team, like the camera in the game and so on.
I would’ve loved to be reminded of the presentation and its contents through the actual slides ; your explanation was a bit brief, and seeing the slides would’ve helped me understand what you’re talking about better.
Your goal with the presentation was […]

5SD064 – Blog Post 3 : Scrum

This post will be about how Scrum has influenced the development of Team Troll’s game, Depth, from the programmer’s perspective.
Let us start with the good parts.
Scrum has been quite effective when it comes to facilitating group communication. Stand-up meetings are a great way of clearly and concisely sharing the what, when and why of each team member’s work, and provides a way of adjusting workload and work items in a way which is reactive to small changes. For example, since […]

Surviral – Global Game Jam 2018

You can find the game here. The theme of GGJ2018 was “Transmission”. We chose to represent transmission through a virus transmitting itself from one cell to the other.