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The Rejected Gun Factory
A twin-stick shooter made for the GMTK 2020 Game Jam.About
- Role: Game Designer
- Team Size: 1 designer, 2 programmers, 1 artist, 1 composer
- Development Time: 48 hours
- Platform: PC (Itch.io))
The Rejected Gun Factory is a twin-stick shooter in which players must retrieve oddly-functioning weapons from the factory to survive and progress through as many of its floors as they can.
Game Designer
As the designer, I was responsible for ensuring the team all worked together towards a cohesive vision of what the game could be.
I was also responsible for designing several elements of the gameplay including the bevy of weapons that players could equip, and the tiles used for the randomized level design.
Retrospective
What Went Well
- Scope Limitation: We were able to keep the scope of the game from growing too large to complete within the 48 hour time limit.
- Communication: Each member of the team was able to effectively communicate ideas, constraints, and concerns with the rest of the team, allowing each element of the game to undergo additional fine-tuning.
- Teammate integration: After our artist had a last-minute family emergency the day the jam began, we were able to find a new artist and quickly integrate them into the existing team to complete the necessary art assets.
What Went Wrong
- Expectations: The GMTK 2020 jam was the first game jam for many team members, and each of us brought different expectations about what experience the jam would provide.
- Metrics: Our team failed to set easily quantifiable metrics early on, making clearly defined goals more difficult to work towards.
How to Improve
- Expectations: Starting with a very small concept and expanding it out as time allows should lead to a more polished experience, instead of having several half-baked features.
- Metrics: Starting the project by defining what we want to accomplish, and adjusting goals as necessary as the project progresses will make the task of assessing our progress much more consistant.
