Bonus Blog: Game Jam 2 Review

So unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to class on Wednesday, due to an emergency that needed my attention. For the most part, I was able to play Anthony’s marble race game and I thought it was a very well put together prototype. In my personal opinion, the class chose a good game to continue on with our final team game to work on. A few suggestions I have is to let players choose their marble color, have different game modes, and a main menu. I think letting the players customize their marbles, can really get them excited and give the players a purpose to keep playing. If the marble race can have different game modes, then the players can now have a variety of different game options they can play instead of just one.

From my perspective, this game really reminds of “Mario 64” and “Sonic”. I have a few ideas as to where this game can go, but I also would like to respect the original design that the creator (Anthony) has originally made. I think it’s important to try and keep the original idea somewhere in the game, but also adding new content to the point where it feels like a fresh game without damaging its originality. I really enjoyed the rolling marble idea and gameplay of the designer’s prototype. I know it’s a beginning starter prototype, but I do feel that it was a little bit complicated to move forward or at least race through the obstacles, all while having an enemy just peck me down and not giving me the opportunity to defend myself. I personally think that the enemy following the player should be removed and just add enemies like mines, pitfalls, more obstacles, and enemies that shoot at the player. I also think that maybe the enemies following the player can be distracting and have a bit of unfairness to it, not really making the game balanced in way.

I think more than anything; I’m really curious with the music and how the sound effects will sound, whether it’s going down the techno side or will it lean more towards the science fiction side. The interface is going to be something really interesting to see because at the moment, the game has no menus or anything on its interface besides the gameplay that’s occurring. Overall, I feel that a lot of this game can be tweaked and can also be turned into a very fun gameplay experience for all players, especially those that enjoying playing racing games such as “Mario Kart”. I can’t wait to start working on this project with the group, I feel that my team that I will be working with, have very creative minds. So according to my calculations, we have about a week to create this game, hopefully we can all come together and knock this one out of the park.