*Here is a link if you are interested in checking out our game, Puzzle maker :
https://itch.io/jam/game-jam-sabotage/rate/837401
Back at the end of november 2020 I got the chance to participate in a game jam organised by students from my university (UQAT) and students from the Conjure club from ETS (École de technologie supérieur). They wanted to create a game jam that would add more interaction with the different teams since it would be held on discord. Based on the show Cutthroat Kitchen, Every team would begin de Game Jam with a 350$ budget to buy different types of sabotage to mess with the other teams.
Working on this game was an absolute blast from begining to end. The other members of the team were super fun to work with and I hope I get the chance to do another game jam with them! Communicating with the team was super easy and we were able to deal with bugs and issues efficiently. Here are the people with whom I got the chance to work with :
Marie-Michelle Poitras : Environment, props artist
Dwayne Le Blanc : Character modeler (https://www.artstation.com/dwayneleblanc)
Jean-Christophe Deshaies-Lévesque : Level Designer (https://jeanchristophedeshaieslevesque.myportfolio.com/)
Jérome Beaulieu : Programmer
Maxime Charland : Programmer
Roxanne Corbeil : Programmer
The theme of the game jam was : unusual. At first we weren't sure about what we wanted to do...We played with a couple of different ideas and we ended up wanting to do a puzzle game, that instead of completing, the player would need to reset the level by closing doors, putting keys and idols to their original places and waking up the ennemis as if you were preparing the level for someone waiting to play the game. The player begins with a full inventory and to win, it would need to be empty and all the ennemies waken up! We were inspired by the paintings from Salvador Dalí and Captain toad treasure tracker. In the end we decided to name it : Puzzle maker.
The player is taking the role of billy, a cute little character that must reset the level so that someone else can ''play the game'' . You begin the game at the victory flag and you complete the game by stepping on the checkered floor. If you put everything back in place and reset the slimes and the doors, Billy will celebrate!
For the different collectibles we decided to use wind up keys and elephants with a top hat. The keys were used to open/close jack in the boxes that were used as a way to block or open a path.
For the ennemies in the game we went with slimes wearing a mustache. The mustache helped the player see which direction the slime would go after waking up. You have to be careful when waking them up because they could make it harder for you to complete the level.
My role for this project was to work on the rigs and animate the different characters in the game (Billy, Slime, the Jack in the box and the butterfly trap) I also needed to make sure that the animations were working properly so that the programmers wouldn't have an issues with them when adding them to the game. Here is a small reel with some of the animations I made for the game, enjoy!
We received a couple of sabotage from the other teams. For example, when the game jam began, we were muted for an hour and we could only communicate by writting to each other. That Sabotage really helped us get our head in the game and be efficient from the very start. The other sabotage we received were that we needed to make our game a multiplayer coop, so we decided that one player can move the character and the other can move the camera around the stage. One of the funniest we received was that we had to use a sexy walk cycle from mixamo on one of our characters, since Billy is the only ''biped'' in the game he was the only one who could use it. In the end, it adds a funny touch to the character and gave me the chance to put more time on the rigs and animations of the other characters. We were also muted a second time and had to add snowflakes in the game. Luckily for us we didn't receive a lot of sabotage and when we did, we were able to find a solution quickly.
In conclusion, I had never worked with the majority of my teamates and I really had a blast working with them and getting to know them a bit. This experience helped me learn and improve my skills in rigging and animating these characters was a lot of fun. Seeing the characters move in the game and getting to interact with them really made me happy and makes me want to participate in more game jams or get the chance to work as a gameplay animator in a video game studio someday!
