Welcome to 4ga News April 2019!

This month we started slow, as we were preparing concepts for our projects and planning future work and events. However, the end of the month was full of action with 3 day work without sleeping session of game jam.

Game Jam Square

Unquestionably it was the best event that we’ve ever been on. The level of the projects was really high compared to other events. We didn’t expect such competition. The atmosphere was great and every team was focused on creating the best game they can. As for the organizational part the event could be more advertised to gamers using official live streams. The light and sound systems could be better and the main scene could be separated from the working area. We are very thankful to the ARP Games for organizing this game jam. It’s always easier to say what can be done better than doing it yourself, but you really did an amazing job and we expect that next game jam will be better and with even higher reach.

The topic – Responsibility turned out to be challenging and quite hard because of it’s broadness. But, as someone wise said that there is no real accomplishment without solving upcoming difficulties.

Rebalance – our Game Jam Submission

Making a game without a 2d artist can be hard. During this event we had to think of the game that will have interesting mechanic and simple, but attractive graphics. Particles saved us yet again. We came up with a concept of paramount divine force that exists in our universe. It was keeping the world together. Then it was torn apart and destructive and creative forces were born. The game is about the war of both powers. Where is the responsibility? One force cannot win without persistence of another. Players in order to win have to preserve the balance and it’s theirs biggest responsibility.

The future of Rebalance

It was great to work seeing all 250 people working on their games. Time was our biggest enemy, but we’ve managed to finish our game. The concept of the game is quite unique and we are planning to release more developed version latter this year. Keep in mind that it was done in a hurry and can have some bugs and unfinished features. We were too sleepy to even think of taking a team photo at the event with our new brand t-shirts that we forgot to put on.For now you can Play current version

Final thoughts about the event

We were working on laptops for most of the time, which was the biggest mistake. Then we started working half at home, loosing precious time for driving. It was hard to communicate between home and the onsite group, because of not having enough headphones onsite. For the next event we are coming with our main PCs and this should boost our performance significantly. The lack of sleep was also a big problem. Next time we’ll try to sleep at least a few hours during first night so we can present game better when jury comes to see it. The timing of the jury was a bit unlucky, only one team member presented the project. He was sleepy and the project was in a bad state at this moment.

The event was an awesome occasion to see how we can create something from scratch and finish it in limited amount of time.

New skills developed, new experiences gained and observations made!

Every event is a great and unforgettable experience. We’ve learned a lot during Game Jam Square.
For the next event we will try to find 2D/3D artists that will be with us onsite and prepare our workflow so everyone can rest and work with full energy. We’ll also make some healthy food before the event.

Final comments

Congratulations for all the winners! You did an amazing job. As we said earlier the level of the games was quite high and each and every production was great in it’s own unique way. However, it would be super cool if during the next jam there will be place for community and mechanics awards and the jury will be more open for new well-known people from gamers perspective. (youtubers, streamers, influencers and other content creators that specialize in games)

As for the community award it could be some kind of voting for favourite game done by players online. Also the game presentation could be more open and all games should be easily listed on game jam site.
As for the mechanics award we have noticed that there was no award that reward unique game mechanics – maybe gameplay, but not really. Admittedly, we did our game in this non-existing category. Nevertheless, we think that adding it could be a good idea.

This post has some ideas that may be good for future game jams and we’ll be pleased if at least some of them will see implementation. Although we are not Game Jam Square creators, we believe that we outlined some ways in which the event can be improved and someone from organizers will read this.

Three Grand Prix Games

Math games

We’ve been really busy participating in the events and working on other projects. We’ve managed to finish concepts for the first game. Some game models and main level are waiting to get polished and put into the final product. To help us visualize the ideas we’ve prepared a few drafts and sketches. We are planning to finish first game in the two weeks time and start working on the second game. We’ve tight deadlines and we need to give it top priority right now.

University life

As most of our team members are still at the university, we will try to use our knowledge to create intriguing and interesting projects that will be be somehow connected to 4ga.

One of us will be trying to find the best ways to keep the work productive. This can help finish him the studies, but also find the ways in which our team can improve. He will describe concepts of competence development and outline the variety of skills that every team needs to be successful. We believe that the good team can be built only with friendly and positive work culture. Unwritten rules and habits are one of the most important things to build the nice atmosphere.

Other one will focus on the networking solutions that enables small team to create connected games. In this case he will try to investigate the ways to create immersive experience, by allowing player to player interactions. Using cloud saves and extensive statistics system is a must these days. Creating connected games can be fun, but it also requires great responsibility. That’s why he will also try to explain the biggest troubles in protecting players data and the game itself using different methods to verify integrity of the system.

See you in a month!
4ga team