Halloween 2012 – 48 Hour Game Jam

A couple of months ago, I made the following, and incredibly bold statement: “ I will be releasing a game this Halloween, or I’m done as a game developer.”. Halloween has come and gone, and as far I’m concerned, I accomplished what needed to be done. I released a game before midnight on Halloween, and more importantly, contributed to the wonderful Holiday that is Halloween.

There’s a few things I should get out of the way before I continue writing this. First off, I’m never going to quit the industry. To quote one of myfavorite movies, Grandma’s Boy, “that’s pure fucking insanity”. Secondly, when I said I was going to release a game for Halloween, it was less to do with the fact that I haven’t released a game for a long time, and more so that I really, really like Halloween, and have failed to properly celebrate it in years. I love carving pumpkins, watching classics like Earnest Scared Stupid, tricker treating (even though I’m considered “too old”), and going out to the bars in costume. The last few years have a been a bit lackluster in celebration, from being horribly horribly sick with a fever in bed, to having all my friends working until 4AM at their respective jobs. That being said, I really wanted to make sure this year was different, and making a game in the spirit of Halloween was a perfect way to do so.

With time until Halloween running out a few days ago, myself and Andrew decided to do a 48 hour Halloween game jam. This was much like my Ludum Dare 24 game jam, except I’d have an artist to work with, who happens to program as well. Having a partner made the jam a lot more fun, as I could focus on programming, and the game came together visually at a much faster pace. We decided to do a Halloween themed boss battle, which would take place on the top of a tower. We were originally going to just do the boss battle, but decided to add a small climb up to the top of the tower to get the player used to the controls. The climb itself ended up taking a lot more time than either of us would have liked, and the boss battle was unfortunately saved for the last 8 hours of the jam; not my smartest decision.  Sleep deprivation kicked in, getting stuck on single snippets of code hung me up, and I simply ran out of time as I frantically threw together movement patterns for the boss, and a few simple attacks.

All in all, I’m actually quite happy with what we did come up. I spent Halloween working on a very fun project, and I greatly enjoyed doing so. The game is by no means complete, but is definitely playable, and at least the climb to the boss can be enjoyed. Perhaps I’ll use what we did come up with as the base for a more complete game down the road, or my Halloween entry for next year.  All in all, it was a great jam, yet another learning experience, and a Halloween well spent.