This past weekend, I participated in the GMTK Game Jam. It's an annual competition game jam hosted on itch.io. The jam was created by YouTuber Mark Brown, who has been doing a great series on game design for a while now. He always comes up with a theme for each game jam, and the themes are always creative and really test your skills as a game designer. Check out My submission for last year's GMTK Game Jam, where the theme was to create a game in a specific genre, but with a mechanic you would normally expect to see in that genre removed.
This year, the them was "Only One". I think it's a great theme, and it's widely open to interpretation. It could mean you have only one life, only one health point, only one bullet, only one screen to play on, the possibilities are numerous. I decided to go with the idea of making a game that uses only one button. The result is...
JELLYHEAD is a sidescrolling game that uses only one button: the spacebar. Before I start talking about the game, feel free to play it in browser on itch.io
As it is in the link above, JELLYHEAD was developed in just under 48 hours. I'm amazed I was able to pull it off, honestly. I even got adequate sleep during the jam, so that has to count for something.
I spent the first few hours of the jam brainstorming ideas and planning. I never like to sit down and start working with the engine until I have a solid plan. I had lots of throwaway ideas, but I eventually settled on the game you see before you. Some of the other throwaway ideas I had were: a platformer with only one platform (you can freeze time and move the platform around), a narrative game that only has one word per dialogue encounter, and a top-down shooter with only one bullet. These ideas weren't bad, but I ultimately decided to pursue a sidescroller game that uses only one button.
Having decided that the game was only going to use one button, I thought about all the different ways I wanted players to be able to express themselves:
So, I had a plan at that point. I sat down and started implementing the mechanics. After I had made a small test level to play around in, I came across an unfortunate realization: the control scheme was... awkward.
I guess I should have known ahead of time that the character would be awkward to control. After all, there's a reason Mario and Megaman use a controller with a D-Pad and two buttons. However, by this point, I had invested so much time into developing this idea that I didn't want to just throw it away. That was when my perspective shifted. I realized that, if I was going to make this game fun to play, I was going to have to design the levels and obstacles in such a way that they accomodate the awkward control scheme. I suddenly found this game jam to be an opportunity for doing level design under extreme restrictions, and I'm happy to say I think it paid off!
I spent the rest of the day designing puzzle elements and levels on paper. I ultimately made four levels and five different puzzle mechanics. The mechanics are:
After designing all these ideas on paper, I started implementing them and building the levels in the engine. I went to bed that night with a playable (but rather ugly) game.
I spent the entire second day working on artwork. The game was playable, but it looked like crap. I decided to go with a nostalgic art style. I used a restrictive color palette, which only had four colors. This is the way art was done for classic GameBoy games. I don't have a lot to say about the art, so I'll just show some screenshots instead:
At the end of the second day, the game was looking very pretty. I love working with such a restrictive color palette. I think it's starting to become my style.
I spent the final day of the jam working on sound effects and music. I had a lot of fun with the sound effects especially. The shield-poke sound is me tapping a pencil against an empty mason jar. The crumbling platform sound is me pouring rice from one cup into another. The slimy sound you hear when the player slides along the floor was me stirring a bunch of oatmeal in a bowl. I just had fun with it and used what I had, and I'm very happy with the results.
After making the sound effects and music, I panicked and rushed to put everything together. I had to program which sound effects played at what times, I had to tie the levels together, I had to throw a splash screen together, and I uploaded my game with only about 15 minutes before the deadline. It was a wild ride!
I really liked making JELLYHEAD. I've been getting lots of positive feedback on it, so I think I'm going to keep working on it for the rest of August as part of my 2019 one-game-a-month challenge. As usual, I'll update my progress weekly as things unfold. I think this would make for a great mobile game, considering it only uses one button.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read! I'll see you next week.
- Jay
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