There’s a reason I wanted to work on Beat the Boss as opposed to all the other games that weren’t left on the cutting room floor (rest in peace, DDWD, gone too soon). Not only did it seem in scope, it seemed genuinely fun just from concept alone. I didn’t, however, account for the infallible mantra every game developer should be following whenever they make a new game: “My game is out of scope.”
The rest of my team didn’t recognize that either until they got their hands on their keyboards, and removed the whole “elemental synergy” thing as soon as they did. It’s from that point that the game design turned into an indecisive whirlwind of disjointed ideas; we only really discussed the design in the beginning, before we’d removed the elemental abilities. This led to another all too common issue; a communication deficiency.
I’ve mentioned that I felt like an intern already, but I also felt like an ambassador; a coder and secondary game-designer that bridged the gap between one side of the room and the other, literally.
Now that I think about it, the only thing I worked on for the entire jam that actually got implemented properly was the text inside of the boss’s health bar. None of the abilities got put in despite them all being 97% done (all they needed was some damage inflicting code), and my fully functioning cooldown icons were dropped as well due to bugs in experimental lighting and whatnot taking priority. We had models for breakable pots in the background and pretty destructible pillars, but no final character model, fireball model (even though fireballs for the boss were made), or crossbow bolt model. We didn’t even implement the shield model that was displayed front and center on one of the statues. The focus seemed to be on graphics, and yet, half of the game straight up didn’t have graphics to begin with. Our game was a jack of all trades, master of none, and that could have been changed with some more communication, and maybe a reevaluation of priorities.
Despite all that griping and despite my dissatisfaction with how little I got to actually do for the game, we managed to make something very nice for a handful of days. A jack of all trades, master of none is nothing to sneeze at for a game jam game; it’s leagues better than a broken mess that barely works. Even despite all the issues I think we had, all we really needed to iron them out was time.
After the game jam presentations, however, we had some time to relax, and after that, dinner, at a burger place I can’t remember the name of at the moment.
I decided on getting a “DT Bacon Dog,” some ginger ale, and some Calamari, deciding that, worst case scenario, I’d feet it to my associates should I not have room / not like them very much. Meanwhile, Mike was debating whether he should get a triple patty burger or a five patty burger. It’s worth noting finishing the five patty burger, entitled something along the lines of “THE BURGINATOR,” would get you a spot on a hall of fame, a hoodie, and a few other goodies, so he didn’t just have a death wish.
The Bacon Dog wasn’t quite up to my very American savory standards, but it was still very good. Unlike what I’m used to in America, the bacon was seriously good. Had you taken out the hot dogs and replaced them with fresh grilled American ones, you’d have a really dangerously good combo going.
The calamari was just as good as I expected; not very. It was still decent, but not worth eating after filling myself up on the Bacon Dog. The batter to calamari ratio was a little too high, and it wasn’t quite salty enough anyway. Better not salty enough than too salty, though.
Meanwhile, Mike was eating his triple patty burger and suffering greatly. It was mostly due, however, to covering an entire french fry in hot sauce entitled “PAIN 100%” and eating it.
Because I’m well known as a bold risk-taker, I decided to try it, by taking about a pinkie-tip’s worth of it, gently dipping the tip of a french fry into that, and briefly touching the sauce with the tip of my tongue.
I swear that the tip of my tongue came close to going numb; the heat wasn’t painful, because I only just barely touched the sauce, but it was some INTENSE heat. I honestly, truly believe that if I’d eaten a “proper” serving of it, I would have literally passed out. The moment I felt the heat, I realized Mike’s predicament. He was handling it like a champ, though, considering everything. The big glass of milk he emptied not long after probably helped.
Tobi, on the other hand, had eaten an entire triple patty burger and was now finishing Alex’s, and offering to finish Mike’s as well, should he need to. I simply sat there drinking my second glass of ginger ale, completely full. I don’t know if it was just because I was abnormally thirsty, the ginger ale is better in Germany, or I just haven’t realized it, but the ginger ale was very good. Maybe I ought to drink it more often.