ROM Game Jam Day 3 Report – “Rise & Fall”

The ROM Game Jam is over and my team, Robots Mashing Keyboards, actually managed to create a fully-functioning game prototype by the deadline.  The fruits of our labour is Rise & Fall, a 2-player dueling action game based on two ancient cultures (which was the topic of the jam).

In Rise & Fall, one player takes the role of  Roman soldier while the other takes the role of an Egyptian soldier…
…who fight by launching projectiles at each other.  They each have four broken artifacts on their side of the arena.
If either player gets hit three times, they “die” and the opposing player gets a point. Each point half-fixes one of the player’s artifacts.  In the picture below, the pottery on the Roman (left) side is half-fixed.
When an artifact is fully repaired, it can interact with foreground objects, i.e. players are impeded by and can stand on it and it can block projectiles.
When an artifact is fully repaired for the first time, it’s name pops up on screen so you’ll know what it’s called and you can recognize it when you see it at the Royal Ontario Museum (that was their idea, by the way).
To win, a player must attain nine points: eight points for a full set of repaired artifacts…
…and the ninth point from the “coup de grâce”.
To the victor, goes his/her soldier running across the screen.
Here is a breakdown of who did what for Rise & Fall:
Idea guys (Game concept):  All of us
Pencil-, paper- & pixel-related tasks (Concept art, pixel art):  Shmuggly, Goombaguy

Computer keyboard masher (Programmer):  M.S.T.O.P.

Electronic keyboard masher (Music and sound effects):  M.S.T.O.P.
With us in spirit:  Saffy

We received lots of positive feedback from other jammers and, to my delight, the archaeologists that were helping us with the historical details of the ancient cultures we were making games about.  They all got really into it.  Also, due to all the hubbub in the room and the crappiness of my laptop speakers, the game’s music wasn’t heard very well. Here it is for you listening pleasure:

So what’s next for the game?  Well, the Royal Ontario Museum said they would like to demo all the games made at the game jam to museum patrons in October, giving us two months to work on and polish our games further.  Given the positive feedback we received, we are interested in pursuing this further. During the playtesting, we found a few bugs and gameplay balance issues that need to be ironed out, so it looks like we already have an idea on how to move forward with the project.  🙂
Copyright © Quadolor Games. All rights reserved.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.