With two weeks left in 2020 right before the holiday season, we decided to take a break from some of our usual publishing, development and porting tasks to instead have a little fun. The Akupara Game Jam saw teams of developers, artists, writers, and designers come together to create prototype games and let the imagination of our teams run wild. Today, I’m going to wrap up all three of our prototypes in a nice little package for you, as well as describe how we went about hosting our game jam. Whether you’re another developer, publisher, or just a curious player of Rosie’s Inn, Brain Frame or Playmaze Panic, I hope this little peak at the insight behind our game jam sates your curiosity.
Why a Game Jam?
First, let me break down some of our thinking when it came to running the Game Jam internally. The end of the year is typically a slower time for Akupara, mostly because the big blowout games that everyone will be playing (your Assassin’s Creeds, your Cyberpunk 2077s, your Call of Duties) drop in this time frame. As a purveyor of indies, we don’t want to be going head to head with big name titles like that. On top of that, the last two weeks in the year typically have other concerns. We’re making holiday plans, figuring out who’s cooking what turkey, if this gift might be better than that one for our friends and family. Stepping back a bit from the pressures of our current projects like GRIME or The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark helped give us a bit of a break.
Here’s how we structured it.
At the beginning of the month, we asked everyone in the company essentially three questions: First, do you have any pitches for a quick game jam game? Then, what kind of work would you like to do on a game jam game? Finally, once we had all the pitches in and what kind of work folks were excited to do, we matched up pitches with team members. That second question was a pretty important one, it turns out, because this kind of cross-discipline approach allowed our team members to flex muscles they wouldn’t normally. Our Social Media Manager, Miguel Moran, has a background in 3D art and brought that to his work on Playmaze Panic. I may be Akupara’s Community Manager but my background in writing and GMing Dungeons and Dragons came to the fore in Rosie’s Inn. Alyssa Kollgaard went from producer to creative director and designer, Matt Weekes from designer to 2D artist, Drew Montemayor from animation to 2D artist and Chris Nguyen from producer to sound design.
About two weeks after everyone submitted pitches, work on the game jam started in earnest. Over the course of the next two weeks, each team member would have 15 hours they could dedicate to the game. The time limit helped simulate the real conditions of a true game jam (in fact, most true game jams would get more like twenty hours) and make sure that all work didn’t completely halt for the final two weeks in the year. It should be noted that fifteen hours spread across two weeks gives more room for helpful back and forth, though. For instance on Rosie’s Inn, I wrote a design document which got turned into a prototype before more narrative and art was added down the line for the finished build. In a true game jam, all those efforts would need to happen simultaneously rather than sequentially, which we found to be really helpful in creating polished design experiences.
Now, about that polish…
Rosie’s Inn
Team members: Buddy Sola, Chris Nguyen, Kyle Holmquist, Jaden Davis, Drew Montemayor, Justin McGinnis
Based on the classic tabletop hook: “you’re all adventurers who meet in a bar,” Rosie’s Inn puts you in the shoes of the bartender trying to make a little gold off the hard fought quests of said adventurers. Of all our prototypes, Rosie’s Inn had the highest overall exposure and the best monetary return (though the games were free, we set up pay what you want on itch.io.) Strategy and management games are a bit of an underserved indie gaming genre and the clarity of the prototype’s pitch definitely drew eyes to the game with lots of positive feedback coming in. Players could easily see where the game was going and had a thirst for more, recommending that the game’s gold (which really serves as a point earning high score mechanic) have the ability to be spent down like a real currency, a piece of feedback that makes total sense to the team.
Rosie’s Inn was a success story of scope. It’s easy in a game jam to go under or over scope, missing the mark by going for too much or too little and ending up with an empty-feeling prototype. To its credit, Rosie’s Inn found the goldilocks zone and really excelled in it.
Playmaze Panic
Team Members: Joni Ceceri, Miguel Moran, Rob Clifford, Cat Arthur, Mike Shanks, Estevao Arantes
When Joni pitched Playmaze Panic as a horror game where you’re being chased through a plastic tubed maze by some horrific creature, I immediately, viscerally felt the hair raise on the back of my neck. What a perfect, niche fear and anxiety to probe, that feeling of being lost in a maze of hollow echoes and lonely confusion. Playmaze Panic boasts the highest conversion rate of all our prototypes and found a surprising home among horror youtubers who specialize in seeking out these kinds of experiences and turning them into short, let’s play content. The game’s design couldn’t be simpler: There’s a monster. Run from it. But the aesthetic casing of the Playmaze and Oogaburga’s masticating chompers really elevate it into something awesome. If you want to hear more about Playmaze Panic, I recorded an episode of the Akupara Podcast with Joni where we dug deep into the game’s foundations!
With the perfect blend of an immediately recognizable concept and a unique aesthetic for the horror genre, Playmaze Panic was a success story of elegance. A simple, evocative experience that makes for a perfect game jam.
Brain Frame
Team Members: Alyssa Kollgaard, Matthew Weekes, Justin McGinnis, Miguel Moran, Kyle Holmquist, Joey Rintoul, Cat Arthur, Addison Blanda
Easily the most ambitious of our projects, Brain Frame asked a simple question: What if you had a roguelite where the random powers were instead hindrances, making the game progressively harder for the player? Couple that with some good ol’ fashioned Mega Man-style platforming/shooting and you’ve got the mechanical skeleton for this prototype. But easily the most important, most impressive piece of Brain Frame were its FMV cutscenes, all of which you can check out on Youtube! Brain Frame was our most successful Twitch game, getting love on a few different streams from streamers who loved the 90’s charm. Alyssa and I also sat down for a podcast episode on the topic of Brain Frame if you want to hear about the prototype’s development from idea to execution!
Brain Frame succeeded in the kind of off-the-wall creativity that only a game jam can offer. Without the second-guessing that comes from years long development cycles or business concerns, we were able to go all out.
Next Year?
We’ve gotten a handful of questions from fans and friends asking if we’re continuing the game jam this coming December. Without announcing anything too definitive, this project was super successful and a very fun way to end the year. Stay in touch by following us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or joining the Discord. You might get eyes on the next big Akupara prototype before anyone else!
