Collision Impossible

Drive recklessly and become the pinnacle of destruction in Collision Impossible! Score the most points by colliding into shrubberies, trees, houses, boulders, and even other players! Beware of exploding barrels and a constantly shrinking planet!

This was my first try at a multiplayer game and it was really fun both programming and later playing with friends! However, I found out that games for game jams should be focused on the single player experience. It's a lot to ask from someone to find a friend to play a random game some random person spent a few days creating. The goal was to create a simple AI for the single player experience but since the networking programming took more than half my time, the AI didn't make the cut and thus Collision Impossible is best played with 2-8 people!

My friend, Valdemar, created all the art for the game while I did the rest.

• Theme: Let there be chaos
• Rank: 77 / 1751
• Co-creators: Valdemar Ribbing
• Platforms: Browser, Windows and Android (cross platform play)
• Dates: 22-29 August 2021

Planetory

Planetory is a simple roguelite strategy game with map generation inspired from Civilization.

Biggest take-away: Spend more time balancing the game! During development, the game was, as game usually are during development, very difficult. When I was finished with the core mechanics I had two play-testers trying the game out and neither of them were able to progress, at all. I made one simple change which would make it a lot easier and I thought that'd be it, so I didn't test the new change. I really should have... Turns out that since the game was so difficult before I had totally forgotten that the enemies did not grow enough in strength, and with the new changes the game became borishly simple instead of very difficult!

My goal was for the player to have to choose between upgrading either weaponry or resource gathering capabilities. If the player soly focused on weaponry, they would end up having too few resources to upgrade fast enough to keep up with the enemy scaling. On the other hand, if the player soly focused on gathering resources they'd quickly get overwhelmed by the more powerful enemies. They'd have to be strategic with what to research. Unfortunately, since the enemy scaling was incredibly slow, the player simply had to research a few weaponry upgrades and the rest of the game they could focus on gathering resources, thus removing most of the fun parts of the game. Just a little play-testing would have revealed this flaw and it is so easy to fix as well.

Map generation: For this game I wanted to create a simple game that used a map similar to Civilization, since I wanted to focus on creating a good map generation. I wanted to finish everything but the map generation in one and a half day so that I had lots of time working on the map, but the game took me one day longer to finish than I had hoped. So with a few hours left before going to bed I started with the map generation and all the ideas I had had were thrown out the window since they would take too long to implement. With not much time I quickly decided to generate the world using a heightmap and a temperature map and with those two numbers decide what tile should be what type of terrain and have which features.

The heightmap is generated by increasing the height of a tile the closer to a node (a random point near the center of the map) it is, with an exponentially random value added to make peaks and valleys rare but existent. The entire map was then lowered until the desired ratio of land and water was met. The temperature map was generated similarly but making temperatures drop the further up and down on the map the tile was and another calculation of the random value.

I want to get back to this generation and see if I can make it better before I watch how other people have tackled this problem.

• Theme: Empty
• Limitation: Make it a Roguelike
• Rank: 4 / 121
• Platforms: Browser
• Dates: 21-23 January 2022

Virus Inc

Virus Inc is an arcade-like game where the player is a deadly virus jumping between hosts, infecting them. The goal is to earn the highscore in time survived and/or hosts killed.

Biggest take-away: Make better AI. In the beginning of the game, since the virus had so few upgrades, the simulation had to be swarmed with hosts in order make the game easy enough to get going. With no pathfinding the hosts often got stuck trying to walk past eachother, and as more hosts got stuck together, not only did it look very silly and unprofessional, it also got increasingly difficult to navigate between them. I could also have removed the collision between hosts, but making a pathfinding AI would solve all issues and also allow for adding obstacles on the map which might have increased the fun (and difficulty) of the game.

• Theme: Simulation
• Limitation: Movement is Lethal
• Rank: 18 / 119
• Platforms: Browser
• Dates: 7-9 January 2022

Colored Realities

You are lost in an illusion and need to break out in this simple platformer. The twist is that everytime you physically jump, you also jump between realities - changing the environment around you!

FierceNugget (my niece) and I wanted to create a game together and she came up with the idea for this game. Together we worked for 2 days; me programming and her drawing and animating, and the last day we focused on polising up the game and creating fun and interesting levels. This was her first game jam and she learned a lot from it, which was my main goal.

• Theme: Illusion
• Limitation: There is only one character
• Rank: 6 / 74
• Co-creators: FierceNugget
• Platforms: Browser
• Dates: 1-3 October 2021

Bubble Popper

The ocean is filled with bubbles and you’ve got an urge to pop them! This is a space shooter game where you play as a turtle shooting your own shell (that quickly regrows) at endlessly spawning bubbles. Be careful, do not let the bubbles hit the turtle! The more bubbles you hit with the same shell, the more points you get. The further the game progresses, the harder it will get as more bubbles spawn, so don't slack in the beginning if you want to beat your highscore!

The turtle is animated with bones and this is the first time I used this feature in Unity. I am happy with the final result but one big takeaway from this game was that it was too difficult for a game jam. I think it would be better to have 3 lives before losing, better control over the turtle and the inclusion of power-ups that when hit by the shell would grant the player some kind of buff.

• Theme: Bubbles
• Limitation: You are your own ammo
• Rank: 34 / 160
• Platforms: Browser
• Dates: 9-11 July 2021

Jump Frog

This game is a platformer created for the Mini Jam 79. You aim and click with the mouse to make the frog jump in order to reach the top of one single level.

I created this game one evening because I wanted to make a platformer. I decided to take a lot of inspiration from Jump King but using the mouse instead of the keyboard.

Creating a game in a few hours is really fun but I had no time to polish and since this game, my game jam philosophy has been to finish all game mechanics halfway through the jam so that the other half is spent only polishing the game.

• Theme: Frogs
• Limitation: Only one level
• Rank: 8 / 192
• Platforms: Browser
• Date: 2 May 2021

New Hope

For millennia you have drifted through space to finally arrive at your destination: a new world! A new beautiful, luscious world lies in front of you, what are you waiting for? Let's build your new home!

This is an idle incremental clicker game created for the B&W Jam. You click to earn cash which you spend on buildings to earn even more cash. The twist is your buildings exploit the planet's natural resources and the more buildings you have, the more natural resources you exploit. After a while the production of the buildings decline as the once beautiful lush planet is mined out into a dead husk, and in the end all life and minerals have been completely extracted so you need to set out to find a new hope.

• Theme: You only realize the value of something when it's gone
• Rank: 72 / 213
• Platforms: Browser
• Dates: 15-16 April 2021

Big Bang

This is the same concept as Attraction, a game I created for an earlier game jam, and was created for the Kindred Community Jam #6.

My friend, Eldstadur, drew a few of the planets with my guidance, everything else was made by me.

For this project I learned that all or most game modes in a game jam game should be available immediately, since not everyone will want to play each mode to unlock the next one.

• Theme: At the beginning... There was nothing
• Rank: 5 / 58
• Co-creators: Eldstadur
• Platforms: Browser
• Dates: 8-10 April 2021

Evil Eyes

The final attack has been launched on the Evil Eyes base, and you have volunteered to do the most dangerous mission of them all, to be a decoy. That's right, you will fly dangerously close to their base to get as many Evil Eyes as possible to attack you so that your allies will have an easier time engaging from the other side. Your mission is simple: survive for as long as possible. You are surely flying into your doom, but you will be remembered forever as a hero.

This is an endless shoot 'em up survival game created for the Mini Jam 77. You will steer your ship to avoid being hit for as long as possible.

• Theme: Courage
• Limitation: Cannot take place on Earth
• Rank: 19 / 144
• Platforms: Browser and Windows
• Dates: 2-4 April 2021

KITTENapped!

The evil yarn balls have kittenapped your babies and are holding them hostage in the backyard! Use your wits to outsmart the yarn and other obstacles you'll face while venturing out to save your innocent kittens.

There are 30 levels with increasing difficulty, some of which will definitely challenge you. When all levels have been completed you could always try to find the optimal way of solving each puzzle!

This game is the same concept as Mirror, a game I created for an earlier game jam, and was created for the Play Jam! game jam.

• Theme: Kitten
• Platforms: Browser, Windows and Android
• Dates: 24-31 March 2021

GronGoBong

Assume the role of GronGoBong, the mighty inventor who sits high in his watchtower overlooking the forest, watching as filth stains the edge of his domain. Humanity is green with envy of your verdurous village and has sent pesky adventurers to rid you of your land and people. Defend the village with your various contraptions and save your people or face extinction. Will you be goblinvincible or become humanhandled?

Three university friends and I spent a weekend creating this game for a game jam. We all brainstormed the mechanics and features of the game and I programmed everything except for the merging of items.

I am very happy with the game itself but I learned how important a good tutorial is for a complex game like this. No one that I know of, except for us the creators, understood the mechanics. Therefore, they couldn't create a good strategy or have as much fun as they could have had.

• Theme: Merge
• Co-creators: Valdemar Ribbing, NinjaBear and Labraoban
• Platforms: Windows and Android
• Dates: 19-21 March 2021

Tamarrion

Tamarrion is a 3rd person hardcore action-RPG where the only goal is to fight against enourmous boss monsters. It takes place in a fantasy world that has been peaceful for centuries, but with an ancient evil awakening again the gods must call on a champion. Tamarrion must alone face enormous boss monsters that no other human could match.

This game was developed by a team of Swedish students and my contribution was designing and programming the enemy AI and behavior system as well as the player skill system. I also helped out with the coding of all other aspects of the game except for the menus.

Created for the Big Game Project at the end of university year two.

• Co-creators: Six fellow students
• Platforms: Windows