The Global Game Jam is already a couple months behind us, but before it got too late, I figured I’d put up a video of the game I worked on. Behold, Fire Forest!
I’ve only been to two Game Jams and both were great, but this one was especially so because Fire Forest took first prize at our location. The theme for the GGJ was “Extinction”, and after pitching some lame idea involving birds I collaborated with a bunch of other people to make Fire Forest, a grid-based strategy game where you control some (but not all) of the forces of nature. You harvest fruit and plant trees with one mouse button, make it rain with the other, and control the wind with WASD. Grump Brother Matt pointed out that the whole thing could be boiled down to one mouse button and WASD, but that’ll have to wait for the next update (which includes Grass that grows on its own!).
My contribution to the project was somewhere in-between coordination, game design, and implementing the audio (fortunately for me, we decided to work in FlatRedBall). I learned a ton, a lot of which I’ve already directed at a new project I have in the works in the dark caverns of Baltimore. In the meantime, Duckball is on hiatus, maybe forever. I learned a lot from that project too, but I have other ideas I want to get started on; one of them will eventually make it to XBLIG.
But Fire Forest, you should play it! It’s pretty easy to learn, and kinda fun in a stressful fight-for-survival way. Just follow the instructions on our GGJ page (Fair warning: You’ll have to install XNA Studio 3.1).
New Grump
DuckBall Devlog 007: Taking Off
