Postmortem: Keep the Light

Postmortem: Keep the Light

Author: Evan M McCall

Your only source of hope, comfort and ability to stay alive is a single torch light, guiding you through the endless caverns of darkness with monsters of old and new creeping down your every step as your lights go out. Keep the light ladies and gentleman for it’s your only hope to avoid extinction.

Our Lead Designer “Cory Harrell” came up with the idea for Global Game Jam. The team as a whole helped to cement the idea and build the emotion and experience of the gameplay. There were a total of 9 of us on this team.

Team Keep the Light wanted to keep the scope of the project minimal but wanted the immersion into the game to be the pulling factor that keeps a person playing. We wanted to portray the feeling of claustrophobia and a little helplessness.  It was really fun just pounding out this game in 48 hours a lot went right but a lot went wrong, but there is a lot of love in this idea.

What went right?

 

• 1. Design:

Well the design of the videogame went absolutely flawless. The atmosphere of the environment and the feel of the character within it were just stunning.  It’s basically a time limit to get from point A to B but the main goal of this was just bring the player into the game make them feel the pressure. Within 48 hours minus the time to sleep, relax and meet together it was rather successful in my opinion.

 

• 2. Work Flow:

Believe it or not it is very important to have a good workflow within a team of 9 people. So that no bottlenecking was created we had meetings between each other twice a day to note our progress and divvy up tasks that need to be done. Cory and I thought of the tasks that needed to be accomplished and in what order so that we maximized everyone’s efforts towards the game and no one was left with “idle hands”

 

• 3. Teamwork:

Everyone knew what they wanted to do and they did it. As long as we gave them tasks they were happy to accomplish this and the fact was we all shared our experience with each other so not only was it enjoyable but the amount of learning done in these two days is enough to cover  1 semester college to me.

What went wrong?

 

• 1. Playtesting:

Not enough of it, we had so much to do within the 48 hour period we paper tested for the most part the design of the level and how to would execute it within gamemaker. O man a lot of stuff within the level stopped working , certain mechanics just would not go right.

 

• 2. Crunch Time:

Even though the 48 hours to make the game was crunch time enough there was crunch time upon that crunch time. Last minute additions to the game and whatnot just had me bugging out trying to get everything perfect the last hour before submission.

Out with a bang.

All in all not a lot went wrong in my opinion. The process was smooth, we really worked well together and it was a fun experience. With the team and time we had it was just amazing and I would gladly do this every month if given the opportunity.

And here is a link to the game.

http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/keep-light

to start the game press esc at the main menu screen after the introduction credits.

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