After many months of waiting, the local alpha group oranized a new GameJam. The alpha is a group of students that organize events for other students, located at the HSMW Mittweida. One of those events is a yearly GameJam.

Ruleset

The timespan of this Jam is as thight as every year. You only get 48 hours to complete your game. Allowed are all assets you have a valid license for or that are free to use. All assets (3D, Sound, Code, …) that are not created within the 48 hour limit, have to be declared upon submission. The jam was split in three categories: Best Art, Best Concept and Best Game. Any game may win multiple categories.

Split In Two

Every GameJam needs a theme. The theme of this jam was “Split In Two”. We a team of three (DerShayan, Ithilnarmo and myself) had various ideas on how to look at this theme. We mainly split the theme in three different interpretations.

Split the Player
Split the World
Split Objects

Although we had great ideas for all of those interpretations we settled on splitting the player. This in comparrison to “splitting the world” seemed more doable in the tight timespan we had.

What did we do?

In this GameJam, contrary to the previous jams we participated in as a team, we decided on a level design heavy idea. You start with a bunch of colorful gummy bears – but your mouth only wants certain flavors. Your goal therefor is to throw all your delicious gummy bears of the correct flavours into the mouth.

To get rid of unwanted bears you may just throw them straight into any pit you see. If you crave for a certain flavour you don’t seem to have you may need to split your bears. This is the main mechanic that incorporates the theme of the jam. Once you split your “player” you split your size as well as your color. Out of an orange gummybear pops a yellow and a red one.

Utilizing this quite basic mechanic we built quite a few tricky puzzles. To increase the difficulty of the game and to create more challenging and interesting levels we introduced more puzzle mechanics that all base on this simple concept. These mechanics are colored doors, where only the right color of bears may enter and pressure plates that require a certain amount and diversity of colors to activate. These pressure plates may then open up more ways that where previously out of reach.

Results?

We as a team had a great time and big fun creating this game. From creating mind scratching level to implementing bounce physics for our little gummy friends, we had a blast. And to our surprise others did too. We, with arguably too little sleep, did not expect to win in any of the three jam categories. But we did – not only one but two of the three categories. Best concept and best game where where crowned with a delicous gummybear. So thank you to all that voted for our game.

If you wish to experience the game for yourself you can do so itch.io or you can see all the other supmissions on the official jam entry. And don’t forget – If you hear scremaing. Don’t worry, you’re just making it up.