If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together
(The) Games Den Quick 2021
In November 2021, I participated in my first ever game jam, hosted by The Games Den, a student group from the University of Alberta with a shared passion for video games. My friend, Boris, was a long time member of the group and knew I was recently exploring the godot engine - so he invited me to the jam! Although I had very little experience with game development (or working in a team programming environment in general, for that matter), I jumped at the chance
The event was named (The) Games Den Quick 2021 and was a great success! Over 24 hours 10 submissions were made, and I highly recommend checking them out! The theme this year was “Dash”, which readers will see as a common theme in the entries in the link above.
The Godot Engine
The Godot Engine is a free and open source game engine which is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac, and can make applications for Android and iOS as well! It seems to be a very powerful engine which is capable of creating 2D and 3D games, and has a shockingly cohesive user interface and workflow. I respect the hell out of the lead developers for their efforts on the engine and their documentation.
Fun fact: Tesla uses the Godot Engine for their car visualizations and in their mobile app! Some job postings on their website even mention it.
The Game
Our team’s brainstorming session went in a LOT of directions, but if I had to shake the tree, here is how it went:
Dash ➡ (Pun/Alliteration) Dash of the Dodo ➡ Dash from the Dutch ➡ The Last Dodo
And voilà, a game about the last dodo bird trying to escape extinction from a tyrannical Dutchman was born!
Check out the Itch.io page for the game here!
Pictures!
Here are some pictures of the game!
The Team
I loved my team, thank you to all of them for carrying me through this first step into the world of game development!
Boris- Lead, Programming God
Andrew - UI, AI, Savant
[Samuel] - The Worlds Best Artist!
[Chih-Hung] - Sound Engineer Extraordinaire
The Code
The code for the game is available on GitHub
But I encourage playing the game first, it’s a lot more fun that way!