Background
This was my first game jam! I spent the weekend participating in the The Global Game Jam 2023. The team was comprised of Abby Ho, Abderrahim Jami, Ewan Foley, Ruadhan O Muiri, Sam Ho. We had 48 hours to create a game based on the prompt: “Roots”
You can play the game here!
About
Root Raider is a 2.5D game designed by 6 students in Abertay Game Jam 2023. Developed in Unreal Engine 5. Players are shrunk down and navigating a tunnel system. Players have to collect all items whilst wandering the tunnel. Players can take multiple routes to complete their collection.
My role
My role was to create the tunnels for the game. My tool of choice for this task was to create a quick tool using Houdini. Using the tool I was able to draw the layout using splines, and then used the splines to place tubes. These tubes where then booleaned, beveled, and remeshed in order to create the tunnels.
Collision Meshes were created by just slicing the mesh so only the tops and bottom sides of the tubes remained to collide with. The tubes were then UVd and a the shape was booleaned from a plane to create a front plate for the foreground. The tool was far from perfect and at some points frustrating, but 48 hours is 48 hours and it got the job done.
What was learned
What went wrong
Version Control…That was the main problem…
Well more specifically for nearly half of the team this was their first time using any form of version control. That along with the use of Unreal Engine and Git, issues where bound to happen.
The original concept was to have multiple enemies chase the player as they collected the items. Unfortunately we were never able to integrate the branch with enemy AI into the final build due to time constraints.
The Houdini tool was also not close to a functional production tool. While the node based system allowed for quick iteration and prototyping, keeping proceduralism was a challenge. Optimization was also not a forethought, and since development was completed using a laptop, it became very slow as the tunnels got more complex. There were also several UV problems, which are apparent in the build.
What went right
This was also many of the team members first time using Unreal. All of them picked it up really quick! Blueprint allowed for quick iteration and rapid prototyping during development.
While the Houdini tool was far from perfect, it got the job done! The tunnels work and the player is able to navigate through them fairly well (albeit some places he can get stuck!).
Our team worked well together which is ultimately the biggest victory within a game jam. The first night we went out to Five Guys where I regaled them with stories of the best American fast food experiences I’ve had. We all had a fun time and were able to work together to complete a buggy, incomplete, yet cool game within a weekend!