Game on Itch.io

Link to game at itch.io website

Hippo Runbow

Introduction

I participated in the GachaJam at the end of November. During a 3-day period, we had to create a game on a particular theme: a combination of 3 random emojis.

In our case, our group had as emojis:

At this event, we were in teams of 10 people.

There were 4 developers :

  • Romain Schlotter
  • Jérémy Renevier
  • Félix Jouanneau
  • Léo Deschaux-Beaume

There were 3 artists:

  • Hortense Daunan
  • Emma Cieutat
  • Léonard Nirouet

There were 2 game & level designers:

  • Théo Saint-martin
  • moi-même

There was 1 sound designer :

  • Florian Archambaud

Constraints

During this gamejam, 5 constraints were imposed to us, randomly picked. We had the choice for each constraint among 3 categories: technical, experience, gameplay.

This is your game (Technical)

The description of this card was : "The game must have a relevant procedural generation", we had to add procedural generation visible through the game.

All created (not) equal (Gameplay)

The description of this card was : "There must be asymmetrical mechanisms at the base of the game.", this description is self-explanatory.

Stay puft (Technical)

The description of this card was : "The game must include deformable meshes that are dynamically affected by the gameplay", we had to add meshes who will have real deformation done from a gameplay feature, like a wall collision.

Fine ai-rts (Experience)

The description of this card was : "The artistic direction of the game must be inspired by a conceptual art generated by AI that mixes the style of at least 3 artists of different centuries ", we need to use a AI to create a general style of our game based on a fusion a 3 artist who can have the same style but living in differents centuries.

Still (Gameplay)

The description of this card was : "The game must be a turn-based experience", this description is self-explanatory.

Game idea

screenshot of our game

Several ideas came to us based on the theme and the constraints. We didn't want to stay too long on the brainstorming phase to have time to do and wanted a project scope that fit the limited time.

The constraint requiring asymmetrical mechanics made us directly see a game playable with 2 players, to easily create an asymmetry. It is also possible to play alone, but this requires 2 phases of play. While we also had to make this game a turn-based game, it was interesting to look at the idea of a 2-player game with each player taking turns.

We started with a game whose principle is a confrontation between a builder and a runner.

The "builder" player will create a course for the "runner" by laying down 1 by 1 the tiles, among 3 tiles proposed in a procedural way. In the set of tiles, there is always 1 tile to the left, 1 tile to the right and 1 going straight. The objective of this player is to create the hardest course so that his opponent takes the longest time to get there.

The "runner" player will have to advance through the course and complete it in the least amount of time possible. The player moves a hippo ball that can jump, to avoid the obstacles in its path.

Conclusion

This experience was very enriching. It allowed me to discover the work under constraint, constraints that are not necessarily wanted as in the professional world. But also to learn teamwork, the importance of communication and the importance of each role in the creation of a game, for example a sound designer who gives a real sound identity to the game.

It was an experience that I am glad I had done, because it made me have a more real view of my abilities and weaknesses. I was able to learn more about myself and the video game world.