Global Game Jam 16 Day 1: The Downfall
DATE: January 30, 2016 | POSTED BY: ElHassan Makled
The first day has ended in the Global Game Jam 2016. After listening to few keynote speeches about game development, story telling, and art, we finally got to know the theme for Global Game Jam 2016… RITUAL!
Before we heard about the theme or decided about anything, the team discussed the possibility of making one of the games they dreamed of making… and after listening to the theme we decided to go for it. Well, not really… we decided to create a prologue for the story.
Mechanics and Brainstorming
The game mechanics were simple. The team first started by choosing a genre… and the winner genre was “SHOOT ‘EM UP”. An interesting but hard genre… because in this genre the game is as cool as its enemies and their combinations in waves. We then added the next layer to the game, we decided to add magic in it and many other things however, we decided to cut most of the features for the sake of the jam and we are keeping it for later builds.
Story
Our story is set during 19th Century Egypt. A prosperous era for royalty, pride, and chivalry… not fun though. We decided to add an extra theme, steampunk. Adding this theme made us try to relate the ottomans love for fabric and the steampunk metal and rust. This combination made amazing concepts. One of which was this hand that was drawn as a concept art for our main character.
Our main character is a King who controlled over the Djin in all of Egypt. The King was just with his people however he was a tyrant to the Djin. With many of them harshly punished for petty crimes against his Kingdom. One Djin sought to end the king’s unjust rule, he united the creatures in all the kingdom and started an insurrection against the King.
The King knows he stands no chance, the king knows he will have to meet his fate. He does not fear his death though, he fears for his beautiful twin princesses’ lives. He decided to buy them some time until they are taken by a trusted friend to two different houses on the far Northern and far Southern cities in Egypt. The King is having his last stand… and this is the game.
Concept art for the king
You play as the King in a chamber with thousands of demons attacking you and you need to go through as much waves as possible. There is no beating the game though, you can never win. The game will eventually end with you dying. The player shares these desperate moments with our character. A man in despair, standing alone against an army. Good Luck!
Music
Lucky us, we have a new member on the team. Finally we have our own original music. Thanks to Mina Samy we are creating games that also send exactly the feel we want to make the player feel. As much as we wish to show you everything… we can’t. Here is a glimpse though.
The Downfall
