On 2018, I joined another "Make a Thon" event on my old school: Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam. Make a Thon is a game jam type of event that challenge the students to make a game, app or website within 60 hours. This has to be done within teams of 6-8 people.
This Make a Thon year, I worked on Syn-Corp. This is a Sci-Fi shooter. Your goal is to find the final boss. There are small level sections that connect to each other. You can easily walk back and forward to another area. When doing so, you will get a smooth fade-in effect as level loading transition. There are also small flying enemies that try to kill you. You can shoot them down. Out of ammo/health? Health/ammo pick-ups can be found in every level!
My tasks were to create levels, tweak the game its visuals, add some music and optimize the game whereas possible. We were allowed to use third-party assets, so long we coded the gameplay. HDRP didn't exist yet, so we needed to look for an alternative. I am not sure what third-party asset we used, but the volumetric lights did definitely add the final tough that we needed! This game is beautiful and atmospheric!
My most work did go into the level in the middle: The skyscraper level. This section connected to four other areas. This level was a more platformer focussed level to shake up the gameplay. You jump from building to building, you run on scaffolds, and you jump on flying robots to get to the next area. There are also big moving clouds that covers your sight when looking down. If I summarize what I love the most about this game, it would mostly be the atmosphere. It is so relaxing.
From the seven/eight groups (I can't remember), we made it to the fourth place. The graphics did stand-out the most to the judge, and we got the highest points on that compared to other groups. In 2017, I have worked on another "Make a Thon" game called Skypeak. That game got first place! You can check out that game here: Link to Skypeak.
