RPSki
Contribution: all

I made RPSki for Global Game Jam 2017, the theme of which was “Waves.”  I made it in about 16 hours all at once by myself.  Working along for a game jam was a new experience, and I enjoyed having full control over the final product.

In RPSki, you control a Jetski in the overworld, cruising around and riding waves.  When you make contact with an enemy, it zooms into a turn-based battle, a la classic Final Fantasy.

The biggest challenges with this project were technical- trying to get the individual squares of water to interact with each other and the Jetski without bogging down the system with 6525 individual update scripts was incredibly challenging.  I learned a lot about optimization, which is something I’ve never had to pay much attention to due to the scope of my games.  It was also difficult to get the water to extend in any direction the boat moves.  This was done through a complicated series of checks to see which grid piece the boat is closest to, and moving the furthest grid pieces accordingly.

I hope to be able to work on this game again in the future.  An RPG is hard to fully flesh out in the context of a game jam.