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The Early Rising of Wintercast

A little over two weeks ago was Global Game Jam 2016, my second Game Jam, and there I started working on Wintercast.

I regularly work from the co-working space the jam was held in, so I was there before the action even started. Also arriving early was a friend of mine who I had met at the previous year’s jam, Michael Shilliday, a 3D modeler and graphic designer who mainly freelances, making hats, skins, sets, and loading screens for games like TF2, and Dota2. His partner in crime, and soon to be in life, Paige Cameron accompanied him. While Michael operated mainly in the 3D medium, Paige represent the ying to his yang, art’ing it up in 2D, developing the textures for their 3D models and sets they submit to Valve.

Shortly after Paige and Michael, Matthew Rafuse arrived. Matt is a bright guy, and the current president of the Saint Mary’s University CS Society. It was Matt’s first game jam though he leapt in head first taking the lead on the level effects, and animation. David was the next to arrive, and he brought the thunder, literally, he is an audio engineer and created the sound track for the game. I hadn’t worked with a sound guy on a game before, usually opting to go without, though there is definitely something motivating about listening to your own game’s tracks while smashing out some code. Branden was the next to join the team, having been floating around the event space before getting pulled into the group. Branden is a developer, like my self and Matt, and put work into the user input / controls, as well as combat mechanics.

As rad as all these people are, they’re all still nerds and keeners, being some of the first to show up Global Game Jam 2016 and winning themselves a seat on team Early Risers. Honestly though, I didn’t pull the team together and I’m not even sure who did. I walked by the table and Matt asked me if I was down to join the team. On the spot I said yes, but I was uneasy because I hadn’t heard any ideas yet and wanted to make sure I was working on the raddest of teams. Long story short, I should play the lotto because I won the jack pot, this team is amazing. I think it is well balanced and composed of a motivated set of individuals.

After the theme reveal (ritual if you hadn’t already heard) we locked ourselves into a conference room and proceeded to brainstorm. We considered what defines a ritual, and related ideas, and then considered what we would like in our game. Initially the team was leaning towards developing a 2D game, mainly because the less experienced members of the team felt that this would be easier, though Michael very much wanted to express his medium, and I vouched for Unity, and its ease of use creating 3D games. After much iteration (maybe 2 -3 hours of brainstorming) we settled on a 3D arena based fighter.

The end result of Game Jam is a fast paced arena fighter we called Witch Arena, and then renamed to Witchual, and now Wintercast. Wintercast drops four players into an arena fighting for control of a pentagram in the center to complete their ritual. Control of the pentagram scores points, though around the outer edges of the arena are five pentagrams that may be captured to give the player a power up / active ability, ie. fireballs. Hot fucking fireballs…  and other things too. More than fireballs though, each power up will counter another. Since there are 4 players and 5 pentagrams, at any given point at least one available power up is attainable. Player will be able to quickly dash to switch power ups, creating a fast paced game of rock paper scissors, pulling players to the outside of the map.

Oh, and my name is Dawson. I’m a software dev. I make things, and sometimes they work :)