Author: Jordan Ajlouni

by Jordan Ajlouni on Blog

GMTK 2018 Game Jam Postmortem

Before you read, there are spoilers ahead.

So here’s a link to my game!

This last weekend I participated in the Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam. My game, “A Forest Full of Monsters” pushed me outside my comfort zone of systems and mechanics and focused more on art and overall experience. I am very happy with how it turned out.

If you haven’t heard about it, Game Maker’s Toolkit is an excellent YouTube Channel that produces video essays on game design. Every year, its creator, Mark Brown, runs a Game Jam to explore new, innovative ideas. This year was no exception.

The theme, “Genre without a Mechanic”, required you to innovate. You had to pick a genre and remove a core mechanic from that genre. The theme required you to think out of the box by its very nature.

One of the things that went wrong with the game was knowledge on how I approached the genre ruined a twist in the game so if you plan on playing it but haven’t gotten to it yet, play it now before continuing. Spoiler warning I guess? Here’s another link to the game for your convenience:

A Forest Full of Monsters

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by Jordan Ajlouni on Blog, Uncategorized

Ludum Dare 42 Postmortem

Link to the game.

Link to my submission.

This last weekend I participated in Ludum Dare 42’s 72 hour game jam. I chose the 72 hour game jam over the 48 hour game jam because I wanted to test out some Unity tech I’ve been working on. Here is a link to the Ludum Dare rules if you’re interested.

The theme was “Running out of Space”. It was a strong, evocative theme both emotionally and mechanically. The theme quickly led me to the inventory system of Resident Evil 4, a game and a mechanic I’ve always been impressed with.

I ended up with The Whole Universe and There’s Not Enough Space. The player must survive as long as they can on the edge of the known universe while quickly running out of supplies. They must balance their hull, shields, fuel, and oxygen as they fly around asteroid filled space looking for cargo to put in their hold. Once in the hold, they must sort the strangely shaped cargo to fit as much as possible. When resources run low, the player can use the cargo to refill their supplies, but the cargo then cements in place, permanently taking up space.

So, here’s a breakdown of how my game jam went!

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by Jordan Ajlouni on Blog

Mind Mapping and Game Design

In a recent hunt for brainstorming and idea generation exercises, I came upon the notion of mind mapping. Mind Mapping is a brainstorming technique that is excellent at breaking down the whole picture of a big idea into a web of smaller connected ideas.

Here is a sample mind map I made for a “tactics” framework with a grid and turn-based gameplay:

I was surprised I hadn’t heard of mind mapping before. The core idea is pretty simple and seems to have been around for a long time, but the modern day uses seem to be more focused for a business meeting room.

But, in the short time I’ve been using them, I find mind maps have incredible uses for game design.

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